India has a natural pest control system that requires no chemicals — and it’s been living in the trees around your fields all along. This practical field-science talk from Northeast India presents proven, low-cost indigenous methods for replacing chemical pesticides with ecological allies. The speaker from Assam has spent a decade developing and validating these techniques, now officially recommended at the state level.The centrepiece is barn owl (ullu) nesting: custom-built wooden nest boxes mounted 15 feet high in paddy fields attract barn owls that hunt rodents for six years — a single installation that delivers continuous, zero-cost rodent control. Alongside this, black drongo perches — T-shaped wooden structures fixed across a field at 10-12 per acre — host insectivorous birds that eat 60% insects by diet, dramatically reducing pest pressure without any spray.The second section covers traditional water conservation: Assam’s ancient ridge-and-furrow bunding system for hillside paddy cultivation, and the Prime Minister’s Amrit Sarovar initiative reframed through indigenous water management knowledge. The core message is actionable and urgent — Indian farming communities already possess the ecological wisdom to reduce input costs, protect soil, and restore biodiversity. We just need to listen to what ITK (Indigenous Technical Knowledge) has been saying for generations
About Speakers:
Dr. Prabal Saikia is the Chief Scientist at Zonal Agricultural Research Station, North Lakhimpur under Assam Agricultural University (AAU), an agricultural Entomologist, and Ornithologist. He had won the Parivesh Mitra Sanman-2023 (Friend of Environment-2023).
Mr. Mahananda is a sericulturist and a silk farmer.
Dr. Mukul Chandra Bora is the director of the Institute of Engineering and Technology, Dibrugarh University (DUIET), Assam. He is the State Project Administrator, State Project Implementation Unit, North East, TEQIP-III, MHRD, Government of India.
Pradip Kumar Bora is the Director at the North Eastern Regional Institute of Water and Land Management, and a professor at Central Agricultural University, Department of Natural Resources Management, Imphal.
