© CAB International 2013. Realizing Africa’s Rice Promise (eds M.C.S. Wopereis et al.) 241 FAO, 1991). The most serious pest birds are gregarious and migratory, such as Red-billed Quelea, but locally other types such as water birds (e.g. ducks and geese) can also be of importance. Rice crops are vulnerable to bird attacks at early crop establishment stages (mostly by water birds) and highly susceptible from the milky stage up to maturation (exclu- sively by land birds). Most damage occurs dur- ing the dry season; in the rainy season there is usually an abundance of seeds from wild grasses available as alternative food sources (Ruelle and Bruggers, 1982). Aside from physical yield losses – which are the main focus of this chapter – other problems caused by pest birds include extensive labour requirements for bird scaring, the associated use of child labour, possible health or environmental hazards resulting from the use of chemical poi- sons, and the discouragement of farmers from dry-season rice cultivation. Although the adverse impact of birds on rice has received much international attention in the past and is still generally recognized, little research on bird damage or control is currently conducted. Given the increasing importance of bird damage in some regions such as the Sahel (de Mey, 2009), this chapter reviews the availa- ble evidence of bird damage to rice in Africa, the Introduction Rice, one of the most important cereal crops worldwide, has the potential to play a significant role in achieving global food security. However, several biotic and abiotic stresses seriously jeop- ardize this potential. According to Oerke (2005), some 15% of global rice production is lost to ani- mal pests (arthropods, nematodes, rodents, birds, slugs and snails). The Global Rice Science Partnership (GRiSP) identifies birds as the sec- ond most important biotic constraint in African rice production after weeds, based on farmer surveys in 20 African countries (IRRI et al., 2010). Despite current control practices, birds cause substantial losses to the African rice sec- tor. Diagne et al. (Chapter 4, this volume) provide an ex-ante assessment of the benefits of rice research. They indicate discounted cumulative benefits of US$292 million for research aimed at reducing yield loss to birds and rodents, and $2.679 billion for total benefit derived from the research agenda – thus, the contribution of research on reducing losses to birds and rodents comprises 10.9% of the total benefit of the whole research agenda. Rice is mainly affected by birds in the humid zone and, to various degrees, in the Sahel and Sudanian savannah zones (Manikowski, 1984; 19 Bird Damage to Rice in Africa: Evidence and Control Yann de Mey 1 and Matty Demont 2 * 1 Hasselt University, Centre for Environmental Sciences, Diepenbeek, Belgium; 2 Africa Rice Center (AfricaRice), Saint-Louis, Senegal * Corresponding author: m.demont@irri.org