Cultural pest management practiced by the upland rice farmers

Diverse crops like sesame seeds, other vegetables planted inside and alongside the ricefarms

Planting other crops for borders

Fol

Cultural pest management practiced by the upland rice farmers when their rice is on its boosting, milking and maturity stage is very crude as they do not use fertilizers. They make borders and planted other crops that could also serve as alternate hosts for pests and insects. They make use of burning rubber based materials such as slippers and old tires on the corner of their farm to get rid of rats. They also burn tails of the rat they caught and do clearing along the sides of their field. While waiting for harvest, the farmer is preparing for the storage house or the granary for the harvest that they called fol. They also make scarecrows and rattles with empty cans to shoo away the maya birds that will eat the mature grains. They also set up indigenous traps in their fields. This is being manned during the day by the farmer’s child not going to school. Another belief system associated in upland rice farming is that no women having menstrual flow will be allowed to participate in planting or even roam around the rice field as it will entice insects and pests to infest the field. The ensemble of traditional crop protection practices used by the indigenous farmers represents a rich resource for modern workers seeking to create Integrated Pest Management (IPM) systems well adapted to the agro-ecological, cultural and socio-economic circumstances facing small farmers (Altieri, 1993).