Riverina rice growers face duck plague

Updated December 12, 2011 10:26:00

Farmers in the Riverina area of New South Wales have endured plagues of locusts and mice before, as well as severe drought. Growers are now contending with thousands of ducks eating their crops.

Source: AM | Duration: 3min 17sec

Topics: agricultural-crops, nsw


TONY EASTLEY: Farmers in the New South Wales Riverina have endured drought as well as plagues of mice and locusts.

This year, strong rainfall has finally raised hopes of a more profitable year. However the rains have brought another pest that has rice growers ducking for cover.

Timothy McDonald reports.

TIMOTHY MCDONALD: Ducks and rice may seem like a perfect match sitting next to each other on a plate at a Chinese restaurant.

But rice growers prefer a little more distance between the two.

Laurie Arthur grows rice west of Deniliquin in the New South Wales Riverina.

LAURIE ARTHUR: This year we've sort got mobs of several thousand. They just sort of come in and land on a bay and just rip out the rice. I've been growing rice for 30 years and I have never seen such a high concentration of ducks.

TIMOTHY MCDONALD: How much of a problem are they?

LAURIE ARTHUR: Well, the early sown crops are all established and are good but it is the later sown crops and they're at a stage where they are, you know, up to about 10 inches long and what the ducks do is they land on the bay and they grab hold of the shoot, pull it out and chew the little rice seed off the bottom and in the process of that they'll sort of denude the whole paddock.

TIMOTHY MCDONALD: And is there any solution to the problem?

LAURIE ARTHUR: Well, I've got about $20,000 worth of flashing lights and howling sirens and gas guns and also some shooters to come and try and deter the ducks from landing. But probably not, you've just got to try to reduce the damage and you know, we have had an incredibly wet year across Australia and the result has been a massive build up of our water birds.

TIMOTHY MCDONALD: So with all those ducks and all those scare guns and all the shooters coming in, are you losing sleep?

LAURIE ARTHUR: We are sort of patrolling it about 20 hours a day and so we are spotlighting the crops at night because they don't like a spotlight being shot on them and then they fly off then. So, yeah, it has been a fairly exhausting fortnight.

TIMOTHY MCDONALD: Les Gordon is the president of the Ricegrowers' Association of Australia. He says it's difficult to estimate the magnitude of the damage, but it's definitely significant.

LES GORDON: There is certainly anecdotal stories going around of crops and bays being shut off and I know of a number of people who've had to do that. It is now too late to replant and getting past the stage where the worst of the damage is likely to be done. The plants are getting a little bit more advanced now but certainly significant damage.

TIMOTHY MCDONALD: Can you give us a sense of the magnitude of this problem? Does it compare to what we saw with the drought for example or does it compare with what we've seen with I guess the locusts or the mice that have come through the area as well?

LES GORDON: They can actually do more damage than all of them, well perhaps with the exception of drought. With drought there is no crop planted in the first place so you at least don't have that expense. In the case of duck you go to the expense of planting a crop which is significant and then to lose it to ducks is challenging.

Certainly do more damage than mice, probably more damage traditionally than hoppers. It is a significant problem but one that only occurs rarely and this year seems to have been it.

TIMOTHY MCDONALD: And have you ever seen this kind of volume of ducks before, have you ever had this problem before?

LES GORDON: We've had duck problems before but in the 30 odd years I've been growing ducks I've never had ducks like this before.

TIMOTHY MCDONALD: Can you give us a sense of the number that you might see?

LES GORDON: Look, it would be pretty typical to go down to say an average sized block of maybe you know, 40 hectares or something, 40 or 50 hectares and have 5,000 or 6,000 ducks on that block first thing in the morning.

TONY EASTLEY: The president of the Ricegrowers' Association of Australia Les Gordon speaking with Timothy McDonald.