Benefits in rural communities

Farm labor is often difficult to find. Working in hot weather and high humidity in these tidal-swampy areas makes land preparation a time consuming and exhausting job. Traditionally, farmers slash the tall weeds with a long machete called a “tajak”. Weeds have been controlled this way for hundreds of years by tidal rice farmers. The cut weeds are collected and piled-up in heaps called “puntalan” and left to dry under the sun. The puntalans have to be turned frequently to assist drying and encourage decomposition of the biomass. When dry, farmers spread the remains of the vegetation evenly over the flooded paddies. After plowing, rice seedlings are transplanted a couple of weeks later. Establishing the rice crop in this traditional way usually takes one to two months and up to 100 man-days of labor per hectare.

After six months, rice crops will yield a maximum yield of 2.5 tonnes per hectare, barely enough to support a family. Traditional farming traps millions of tidal rice families in poverty.

However, more progressive farmers have been using paraquat and finding an easier and quicker way to prepare a paddy field.

Typically very dense weed populations are sprayed with paraquat and left for several days until fully desiccated. Only paraquat can act fast enough between tides to kill weeds because it is absorbed by leaves before it can be washed off – in just the same way that it is rainfast in less than half an hour.

The dead vegetation is then lightly incorporated into the paddy mud using a mechanical cultivator if available. Otherwise, a drum filled with water can be used to roll down the weed residues. Returning the decomposed weeds to the soil adds organic matter, important to maintaining fertility.

By controlling weeds with paraquat the land does not need to be plowed. Two or three days later rice seedlings can be transplanted.

Land preparation which previously took one to two months on a typical one hectare farm is reduced to only seven to ten days. A single farming household can now manage crops on two to four hectares. Using paraquat, farmers can harvest two crops of high yielding varieties each year. A paraquat-based system typically costs only 20% that of a plow-based system. Rice production can increase by 60% at each harvest or by 120% over one year. Ultimately, tidal rice farmers using paraquat can triple their income. Paraquat has enabled rice productivity in the coastal areas of Indonesia to increase substantially, contributing to the country’s success in feeding its fast growing population.

Vietnam

Fast and effective weed control by paraquat means higher yields and more profit In Vietnam, maize and tea are examples of important annual and perennial crops, respectively, where the use of paraquat is increasing yields and profitability, and improving the soil. Domestically, maize is in great demand for animal feed and tea is an important export commodity. Both crops are grown on hillsides where plowing and high rainfall can mean huge losses of soil by erosion.

Paraquat is particularly suited to help because of its use in no-till farming and its rainfastness. Controlling weeds with herbicides avoids the need to plow, which destabilises the soil making it prone to erosion.

Glyphosate is often used for the same purpose, but paraquat’s non-systemic mode of action means that roots are unaffected and remain to anchor the soil.

Using paraquat can save around 40% of labor requirements and increase maize yields by up to 1.1 tonnes/ha. Net profit was calculated as increasing by more than $350/ha over conventionally hand-weeded fields. The higher productivity of crops where paraquat had been used was estimated to amount an annual saving of up to 140,000 tonnes of maize imports.

Philippines

The population of the Philippines is growing amongst the fastest of all Asian countries. Already the country has less than one twentieth of a hectare of arable land per person (global average is one fifth of a hectare), and there is great pressure to grow more food. A survey of nearly 500 smallholder vegetable growers showed that paraquat users typically had their cost of land preparation and weeding much more than halved. Net cost savings reached over $200/ha and there were usually substantial increases in farmers’ incomes.

China

Included in the analysis were two other studies from China, which generated evidence of substantial benefits from paraquat use. One concerned a region in Sichuan province where rice is rotated with wheat and oilseed rape. Here, a long-term study established yield benefits averaging 8% from rice grown in a no-till system using paraquat. Vegetable growers in Guandong province have taken advantage of paraquat’s unsurpassed speed of action to bring forward planting by 10 days. Over several cropping cycles, this time saving accumulates to allow one or two extra crops to be grown each year. With an estimated 12 – 24 million paraquat users in China, the overall value of the extra cropping due to paraquat must, therefore, be worth several billion dollars per annum.

Summary

The scope of the analysis and the range of economic benefits received by small farmers from using paraquat are summarised in the following table.

Country surveyed	Cropped area treated with paraquat included	Net increase in smallholder annual income
Vietnam	>100,000 ha (maize, tea)	$80 - 350
Philippines	>300,000 ha (maize, sugarcane, vegetables)	$21 - 224
China	>700,000 ha (rice/wheat/rape, vegetables)	$440 - 1000

In addition, no-till cropping using paraquat can significantly reduce soil erosion and eliminate pollution caused by burning weeds pulled or cut by hand.

Read the full Outlooks on Pest Management paper here.

References

Shoham, J (2013). Quantifying the economic and environmental benefits of paraquat. Outlooks on Pest Management, 20, (2), 64-69

Rice planting in weed-free paddy Indonesian farmers rely on paraquat to increase efficiency and productivity, generating more income and more time for their families. This has been confirmed by recent surveys carried out in two important agricultural districts of Indonesia.

Maize and paddy rice are the major crops grown in Grobogan District, central Java. Since 1999, farmers in Grobogan have been expanding their maize growing. This was initiated by a change in government policy to encourage agroforestry.

Maize can be grown in young teak plantations while the canopy is still sparse. However, the additional cultivated land has put huge pressure on labor requirements.

Barito Kuala is a low lying rice growing district in the south of Kalimantan. For the most part the land is at, or only a few metres above, sea level, and much of it is subject to frequent flooding when the incoming tide pushes water back up the river deltas (see article on tidal rice). Rice is key to Indonesia’s food security. Although Indonesia is the world’s third largest producer of rice, it is also the seventh largest importer, with a current annual deficit of more than one million tonnes.¹ Most farmers have been using paraquat since the 1990s.

Why use paraquat?

The surveys showed that in both districts paraquat is extensively used for weed control. In Grobogan District, 80% of farmers use paraquat to clear the land before planting corn and nearly 90% use it for inter-row weed control. Previously, farmers had to remove weeds by hoeing and manual pulling. In Barito Kuala, although paraquat cannot be used after the rice has been planted, all the farmers surveyed used it when preparing the land.

When asked why they use paraquat, by far the most common responses (70-85%) were because it saves costs and the need to hire so much labor. Spraying paraquat enables very large savings in the costs involved in preparing land for planting and in subsequent weed control operations (Fig. 1).

1b. Maize growing costs 1a. Rice growing costs

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure 1: Comparison of costs of operations in crop production using manual weeding or spraying paraquat in rice (left) and maize (right).

 

Benefits to income and lifestyle

Figure 2: Activities pursued by farmers in time freed-up by using paraquat. Farmers were also asked how they used the extra free time generated as a result of the efficiencies gained (Fig. 2). Nearly 40% of maize farmers were growing more maize. The corresponding figure was less for rice farmers who tended to find other income generating activities.

In Barito Kuala district, oranges have become an important high value crop now that rice can be grown more efficiently. Significant numbers from both districts found that they now have more time to spend supporting their families and getting involved in their communities.

Since starting to use paraquat, many farmers explained that they have used the extra income to provide a permanent house for their family, to buy items such as motorcycles and to send their children to college.

References

1. USDA Foreign Agricultural Service report on Rice production in Indonesia (2012)