Following the success, Cancangan has turned into a “school” for many students, farmers and government officials who visit the village to learn about mice extermination using a barn owl. Some have come from abroad.

“After using barn owls, mice plagues have declined significantly,” Bavid Margo Utomo, head of the Margo Mulyo farming group, told thejakartapost.com in Cancangan village on Thursday.

He further explained that in the past, farmers in the village could harvest only 20 to 30 percent of their crops, such as rice, corn and cassava, planted on 25 hectares of land. Up to 70 percent of their crops were often destroyed by mice, which were difficult to eradicate as they nested in the dikes between rice fields.

The dikes were formed from andesite stones from Mount Merapi eruptions. The volcano is around 15 kilometers north of the village.

“Previously, we farmers always bought rice because we always suffered harvest failure,” said Bavid.

The initiative began when Cancangan farmers got a couple of barn owls from the Raptors Club Indonesia (RCI) in the middle of 2013. RCI head Lim Wen Sin said an adult owl could kill dozens of mice in one night. The number was higher if a female barn owl had offspring to feed.

Every night, at least three barn owls kill mice on 25-hectares farm, which belongs to the farming group. Barn owls from outside of Cancangan also often hunt mice in the village.

Bavid and his farming group can harvest up to 80 percent of their crops now. The success story moved him to call on farmers in other villages to use barn owls to exterminate mice.

“The barn owl is a mice exterminator that is cheap, simple, environmentally friendly and does not make a farmer’s job more burdensome. It is much more effective than killing the mice by hunting them to their nests or using rat poison,” Lim said. (ebf)