Herding Ducks in Kanchanaburi
On one of my daily bike rides, along my usual route, I saw
hundreds of ducks being herded through a recently harvested rice field. Below
is a video I took of them. If you’re on Facebook, you’ve seen the videos
already, but read on, there’s more to the story than the pictures can tell on
their own.
It was surprising to see all those ducks being driven
through the field, but I didn’t give it too much thought. Two days later, I saw
the ducks swimming in the canal that goes along the road.
Again, I took a few pictures, then rode on to finish my bike
loop. Passing the same spot again about ten minutes later, I saw no ducks at all in the canal. Hmm, where had they gone? And a couple of days after
that, I saw the ducks in the canal again. Their herders were with them, one wading
behind the ducks, one walking along the side of the canal that they didn’t want
the ducks to climb out of, and one to head them off at the point where they
needed to cross the road, as you see below. The video shows at most only about a fourth of the ducks in the herd.
The man you see at the end of the video asked me in Thai where I was from. “America,” I said, and he said something like “You don’t
have ducks there?” as if he couldn't think why anyone would want to take pictures of ducks. I started to say, um, yes, my parents had ducks on our farm . . . , but the man was already gone – with hundreds if not
thousands of ducks to keep track of, he had other things to do besides chat up
random foreigners.
By now I was quite curious about the ducks. I sent the above
video to my friends Judy and Fizz in Germany, who said they look like Laufenten
(Runner Ducks). These ducks get their name from the way they run more or less
upright, rather than waddling like other ducks. Judy wrote that Runner Ducks
are popular with gardeners because they eat the slugs that destroy all your
plants and are so hard to get rid of.
Click! The part about slugs reminded me that when I was in Sukothai
province some months ago, our tour guide told us about efforts to control slugs
and snails in rice paddies by importing storks to eat them. It was time to do
some research.
Internet searches for “Runner Ducks in Thailand” and “Duck
Farming in Thailand” turned up quite a few YouTube videos similar to mine, showing large numbers of
ducks crossing roads or grazing in rice paddies. I also found a rather scary
report on the role of ducks in spreading the bird flu virus (yik), information about the history of duck farming in Southeast Asia, and an
interesting article titled “Nomadic Duck Farming.” Here is the gist of of what I learned about ducks and rice fields.
Increased rice production in Thailand (three harvests a year rather than two, more land opened up to rice farming) had unintended
consequences, including habitat loss for natural predators of slugs and other pests, which in
turn led to greater numbers of pests.
So, some farmers revived an ancient tradition, "rice duck farming." Having ducks eat the
pests is less expensive than, and ecologically preferable to using pesticides. An article on the Greenpeace website describes the 7,000-year-old practice of "rice duck farming" in China, where ducks were raised on rice paddies -- raising ducks and growing rice were integrated. See: http://www.greenpeace.org/eastasia/news/blog/how-ancient-chinese-farmers-had-it-right-all-/blog/38534/
"Nomadic Duck Farming" as described in the article so titled seems to be a modern adaptation of rice duck farming, in which duck herders literally move with their ducks from farm to farm, staying only about ten days in each location. These "nomad farmers" are actually contract laborers employed by thao kae, wealthy men who finance the project and keep most of the profits. The "nomad farmers" get ducklings and a few weeks’ worth of feed from a supplier, who also provides them with a small living allowance and trucks for transporting the ducks. I didn't find information on how fees for the ducks' services are collected from the rice farmers.
The herders take the ducks to forage for slugs, insects, and rice that may still be on the ground at the farms where they stop. Runner Ducks are very popular for this purpose, not only because they prefer slugs to most other foods, but also because they are prolific egg-layers. The herders sell the duck eggs and, eventually, the ducks themselves to earn money to pay back the thao kae at the end of a cycle. It's not hard to see how the herders could get trapped in a cycle of always owing the thao kae.
My best guess is that the men herding ducks in the videos I took are traveling with their ducks, like the man interviewed in the article “Nomad Duck Farming,” who travels with 8,000 ducks, and several family members to help him. Here is the link to the full article.
"Nomadic Duck Farming" as described in the article so titled seems to be a modern adaptation of rice duck farming, in which duck herders literally move with their ducks from farm to farm, staying only about ten days in each location. These "nomad farmers" are actually contract laborers employed by thao kae, wealthy men who finance the project and keep most of the profits. The "nomad farmers" get ducklings and a few weeks’ worth of feed from a supplier, who also provides them with a small living allowance and trucks for transporting the ducks. I didn't find information on how fees for the ducks' services are collected from the rice farmers.
The herders take the ducks to forage for slugs, insects, and rice that may still be on the ground at the farms where they stop. Runner Ducks are very popular for this purpose, not only because they prefer slugs to most other foods, but also because they are prolific egg-layers. The herders sell the duck eggs and, eventually, the ducks themselves to earn money to pay back the thao kae at the end of a cycle. It's not hard to see how the herders could get trapped in a cycle of always owing the thao kae.
My best guess is that the men herding ducks in the videos I took are traveling with their ducks, like the man interviewed in the article “Nomad Duck Farming,” who travels with 8,000 ducks, and several family members to help him. Here is the link to the full article.
My searches didn't turn up any information on how widespread the practice of "nomad duck farming" may be in Thailand or other Southeast Asian countries. The man quoted in the article said there were 20 such farmers "in Sena alone" (Sena is a district in Ayuthaya province). If the same is true in other provinces, there could be thousands of them.
The practice of nomadic duck farming may eliminate or reduce rice farmers' dependence on pesticides, but has some obvious drawbacks. It's clearly a difficult life for the duck herders as well as for their ducks, who must be terrified to be packed into and out of trucks every couple of weeks, not to mention the stress of having to navigate new terrain each time they are moved. Not least, transporting the ducks over longer distances fosters the spread of disease. Sadly, concern for ethical and humane treatment of animals too often takes a back seat in developing countries.
I was surprised to learn, from German websites forwarded to me by Judy, that the idea of short-term use of Runner Ducks to rid people's gardens of slugs had won a Henry Ford environmental prize in Austria in 1999. The project, called "Rent-an-Ent" (rent-a-duck) quickly came under fire for a number of reasons, notably mistreatment of the ducks. As far as I know, "Rent-an-Ent" was not done with huge numbers of ducks as described in "Nomad Duck Farming;" rather, a few ducks (usually two) would be rented to a gardener for a few weeks or months at a time.
The practice of nomadic duck farming may eliminate or reduce rice farmers' dependence on pesticides, but has some obvious drawbacks. It's clearly a difficult life for the duck herders as well as for their ducks, who must be terrified to be packed into and out of trucks every couple of weeks, not to mention the stress of having to navigate new terrain each time they are moved. Not least, transporting the ducks over longer distances fosters the spread of disease. Sadly, concern for ethical and humane treatment of animals too often takes a back seat in developing countries.
I was surprised to learn, from German websites forwarded to me by Judy, that the idea of short-term use of Runner Ducks to rid people's gardens of slugs had won a Henry Ford environmental prize in Austria in 1999. The project, called "Rent-an-Ent" (rent-a-duck) quickly came under fire for a number of reasons, notably mistreatment of the ducks. As far as I know, "Rent-an-Ent" was not done with huge numbers of ducks as described in "Nomad Duck Farming;" rather, a few ducks (usually two) would be rented to a gardener for a few weeks or months at a time.
In closing, let me add that I haven’t seen the ducks for a few days, so I’m guessing they have been moved on to the next farm. Now, when I see a truck loaded with the type of crates used to transport poultry, I wonder if those are "my" ducks.
27 January 2015
Update 31 January 2015. I spoke too soon. Late this afternoon I saw the ducks again, in one of the fields where I first photographed them a couple of weeks ago. Here they are, or rather, some of them.
As you can see, the herders are standing at the edge of the field to keep the ducks from going into the next field, which appears to have been more recently planted than this one. It still has standing water and the rice plants are more delicate-looking than in the field the ducks are in. Everyone seems happy and the ducks are busy eating, which is their job, after all. -- Anyway, I shouldn't have been so quick to conclude that these are nomad ducks. Or maybe they are, but their period of work in the fields I've seen them in lasts longer than two weeks. I'll see what else I can learn about ducks and rice fields in Thailand before I leave in two months. Stay tuned!
Disclaimer: The content of this blog is mine personally. It does not represent the opinions of the Peace Corps, the US government or its employees, or anyone but me.
No comments:
Post a Comment