Our Natural Pesticide

We have just deployed six native ducks, locally known as "itik", into our organic rice field to help us get rid of Golden Kuhol (Golden Apple Snails) that are a menace to our organic rice crops.

Golden Kuhol bring down rice yields in the Philippines by as much as 40%, and Filipino farmers have been resorting to massive use of synthetic molluscicides that are expensive and broad spectrum, affecting non-target organisms including human beings.

One organic solution to the Golden Kuhol problem is their natural prey, itik. Agro-scientists refer to itik as bio-pest control agents...how very Jame Bond!

Mollusks are a staple in the diet of native ducks, providing the calcium that the ducks need in order for their egg shells to harden. So when you deploy our native ducks into the rice paddies, they eat the kuhol, and help control their population.

We first had to train our "Itik Agents" to learn how to eat Golden Kuhol. Because they were used to eating only commercial feeds when we first got them, we had to catch kuhol by hand, crush them, and feed them to the itik while they were still in cages. Once they developed a taste for kuhol as food, we then released them to our rice paddies, where they now dutifully fulfill their role as our certified Kuhol Pulis.

We sourced the itik from the neighboring town of Victoria, Laguna of Amazing Race fame. (The Amazing Race and The Amazing Race Asia have both used the town of Victoria on separate occasions as the venue for the carabao plowing challenge.) Victoria closely rivals Pateros as one of the largest producers of penoy and balut which are eggs of our native itik. Key to duck raising is the proximity of these two towns to Laguna Lake, which is a good source of small mollusks that are fed to the itik every day. From dawn to noonVictoria to feed the tens of thousands of itik in the duck farms of this small lake shore town. each morning, boat loads of mollusks are delivered to the shores

Our Natural Pesticide

Feedback