Dutch farmers to spray tabasco on crops to ward off furry gl

THE HAGUE (AFP) - A farming co-op in the Netherlands has asked the ministry of agriculture to authorize the use of spicy tabasco sauce to protect their young crops from the insatiable appetites of hares, rabbits, crows and pigeons.

"Some of our clients, farmers in Brabant (in the southern Netherlands) have used a tabasco-based mix to protect their crops and because of their good results we asked the ministry to officially authorize to use of tabasco as a deterrent," Ton Hendrickx of the CZAV co-op told AFP on Friday.

The farmers' organisation wants the tabasco mix to be officially recognized as a spraying agent by the ministry so that farmers can buy the sauce in bulk.

The use of tabasco to ward of hungry animals has several perks. It is cheap with six 50-mililitre bottles being enough to spray a hectare of land, Hendrickx said.

Animal welfare organisations are also in favour of spicing up the crops because it avoids the farmers shooting birds and mammals munching on the plants.

Hendrickx said the tabasco spray would not make the vegetables taste spicy when they are harvested because it is only used on the very young shoots.

The idea of using tabasco to scare off animals is not new.

"It is something of a grandmother's recipe, you could say," Hendrickx said.

For the moment Dutch furry and feathered gluttons can continue to gorge on bland crops because the use of tabasco spray will most likely not be authorized before 2006. It takes an average of two years for the agriculture ministry to certify a new spraying agent.

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