Back to Nature: No To Chemistry
Owls instead of pesticides to fight pests
Grandmother’s remedies always work. And even in this case, the solutions used by our predecessors prove to be useful and more sustainable than the brutal chemical practices to which intensive agriculture has accustomed us.
The damage caused by the intensive use of chemical products in agriculture is under everyone’s eyes and concerns the health of both humans and animals and that of the Planet as a whole.
For this reason, returning to natural farming practices becomes a more or less mandatory measure, especially now that we are realizing the damage we have caused to the environment and to ourselves.
As early as 1982, Prof. Yossi Leshem, an Israeli Ornithologist, started a project to replace the use of pesticides with the use of owls and barn owls.
Several farmers had responded to an abnormal invasion of their crops by rodents with a massive use of chemical solutions, which obviously had a tremendous impact on the environment.
Prof. Leshem then had the idea of devoting some birds from the Tel Aviv zoo in Israel to the fight against rodents. Soon, the advantages of using barn owls and owls instead of pesticides were clear to everyone. The only dangers concerned, in fact, only the birds: not knowing barriers, they often trespassed into neighboring countries where the chemistry was still widely used in the countryside.
Despite the initial difficulties, this project proved to be effective for over 15 years and was adopted in several countries in the Middle East. It even became a forum for dialogue between researchers from different Middle Eastern countries, often in conflict with each other. It has been a sort of 360° peace mission.
Photo by photostockeditor on Unsplash
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