Abstract
The objective of this study was to explore indigenous pest management mechanisms (IPMMs) used by smallholder farmers in Ankesha Gugusa Wereda, Northwestern Ethiopia. In order to conduct this study, key informant interviews, focus group discussions, and field observations were used as instruments for primary data collection. Secondary data were also used. The findings of this study show that there are different pests which affect the growth and yield of crops in the study area. These include stalk borer, African bollworm, locust, African army worm, weevil, mice, birds and wild animals. Smallholder farmers also use various IPMMs to protect pest infestation. These IPMMs include, among others, proper cleaning and ploughing of the farmland repeatedly, sprinkling of the mixture of cattle urine, ash and phytolaca dudcandra plant, picking up and throwing away the worm, fumigation of the farm, cracking materials such as corrugated iron, ploughing the surroundings of the farm, smearing the storage with dung and storing crops by massaging with pepper, using poisonous herbs and erecting man’s statue on the farmland. IPMMs have merits for sustainable development. They are suited with the ecology, have the power to avert risks, they rely on locally available resources and are cheaper and in most cases cost-free in cash terms. These indigenous methods have also some demerits as well. They require intensive labor, some of them are limited in their area of application and they don’t provide an effective and long-lasting solution for pest infestation. Despite potentials to prevent pest infestation at an early stage, IPMMs lack attention and have not been exploited fully in farming practice. Hence, the suggestion of this study is that IPMMs need to be maintained and applied in farming practice a lone( at early stage) or in integration with pesticides (if the pest infestation is serious and wide spread)
