Sustainable Agriculture and Food: Four volume set (Earthscan Reference Collections)

Use of Communication Media in Changing Rice Farmers’ Pest Management 253

intentions to spray. By using the conflict approach, farmers in the Philippines were
motivated to stop their early season spraying (Heong and Escalada, 1997a). Using
communication materials, farmers in the study sites were similarly motivated and
reduced their insecticide sprays by 47 per cent, from 3.35 to 1.76 sprays per sea-
son. This reduction seems to be attributed to the change in beliefs as indicated by
the reduction in the belief index from 11.3 to 7.6. The direct relationships between
number sprays and the belief index further support this conclusion.
Farmers’ insecticide spraying in the early crop stages had clearly reduced.
Before the introduction of the communication materials, about 60 per cent, 82
per cent and 84 per cent of the farmers applied insecticides during the early and
late tillering and booting stages, respectively. Eighteen months after introduction,
farmers’ spraying during these stages had significantly reduced to 25 per cent, 41
per cent and 55 per cent, respectively. Further reductions to 0 per cent, 19 per cent
and 30 per cent were observed 31 months after introduction. As the content of the
communication campaign was to motivate farmers to reduce early season spraying,
this reduction in early season spraying implied that the campaign had affected
farmers’ insecticide use. At the heading and maturing stages, there were initial
reductions in farmers using insecticides, and spraying was increased although not
significantly higher than in the pretest. This increase was also reflected in the

Table 12.10 Prices of some common insecticides used by farmers between 1994 and

1997 in Long An province and mean percentage sales volumes of five retailers

Application

rates

(g ai ha–1)

1994 1995 1996 1997

Monocrotophos (US$ per

500cc bottle)

500 1.60 1.65 1.90 Banned

Methyl parathion (US$ per

500cc bottle)

500 1.45 1.18 1.36 Banned

Methamidophos (US$ per

480cc bottle)

500 2.20 2.30 2.30 2.30

Deltamethrin (US$ per 100cc

bottle)

12.5 1.20 1.28 1.30 1.30

Alpha cypermethrin (US$ per

100cc bottle)

20 0.90 0.85 0.90 1.00

Lambda cyhalothrin (US$ per

250cc bottle)

7.5 3.70 3.80 3.90 4.00

BPMC (US$ per 500cc bottle) 500 1.00 1.14 1.36 1.45

Diazinon granules 10% (US$

per kg)

1000 0.77 0.84 0.93 1.02

Mean percentage of total sales

in insecticides

36.6 30.6 24.2 21.4

SD 3.6 3.0 5.2 4.2