Influence of low intensity education programme on knowledge, perceptions and willingness to use owl for rodent control in agriculture

Abstract

Rodent pests contribute significantly to pre-harvest and post-garvest crop loses. The use of owl appears to be more attractive means of rodents control in agricultural crop farming primarily due to its minimal environmental impact compared to industrial chemicals. Despite owls‘ potential as means to control rodents, their uptake by smallholder farmers is low due to negative perception on the owl. Therefore, this study assessed the influence of low intensity education programme on farmers’ perceptions and willingness to use the owls for rodent control. This information is valuable for developing strategies to ehance the use of owls for rodents control. Longitudinal design was adopted to collect data from 200 selected maize farmers in four wards of Iringa and Mufindi districts in Iringa Region, Tanzania. Questionnaires were used for data collection on perception and willingness. Data were analysed using SPSS. The average knowledge score increased significantly from 1.9 to 4.3 after training (p=0.00). Futhermore, positive perception improved from 36% to 90% after training. The mean score responses on willingness to invest resources to create favaourable environment for attracting owl in their farms increased significantly from 1.9 to 4.2 (p=0.00). The results show that low-intensity training or education programme improved the perception and willingness to use owls for rodents control, offering a potential avenue for changing negative perceptions and improve the adoption and use of owls to control rodent pests. The adoption of owl as biological rodents control could also serve to reduce the use of chemicals that can potentially harm other unintened animals.