Rats are rampant in the fields of Nghe An border district.

Mr. Vu Ba Dia in Huoi Mu village, Huoi Tu commune (Ky Son) returned from visiting his family's rice fields. He sadly said: "This year, my family doesn't know where to get rice to eat. Mice have destroyed it all. I planted 2 hectares, but rats have destroyed 1.8 hectares." In Na Ni village, also facing a similar situation, Mr. Vu Ba Khu's family planted 1 hectare of upland rice, but rats destroyed 0.9 hectares.

Mr. Vu Ba Khu said that this year, rats did not only cause damage once, but from the last crop season in August when the rice was just starting to grow, rats attacked. At the end of October and the beginning of November, they continued to attack.

Mr. Ha Ba Ly - Vice Chairman of Huoi Tu Commune People's Committee also confirmed that the households of Mr. Chua No Cho and Vu Ba Dia are the households with the most rice fields damaged by rats in Na Ni and Huoi Mu villages. In Na Ni village, people planted 14.2 hectares of upland rice, but rats damaged 5.8 hectares. In Huoi Mu village, there are 13 hectares of upland rice, but through inspection, it was found that 7.3 hectares had their stalks bitten in half by rats, and the grains were eaten, causing the rice fields to be devastated.severe crop failure.

Officials and people of Huoi Tu commune inspect damaged rice fields. Photo: HT

In the whole commune of Huoi Tu, people planted 66.2 hectares of rice. After discovering the phenomenon of rats destroying the rice fields, commune officials, families, and village committees went to the field many times to check and assess the damage, then reported to superiors. Mr. Ha Ba Ly added that through field inspection, the rice area of ​​Huoi Tu had more than 80 hectares out of 320 hectares of upland rice fields damaged by rats, almost unable to harvest in the fields, many rice fields of the people were completely lost due to strong damage from rats.

Not only in Huoi Tu, many rice fields of Mong people in other communes of Ky Son border district such as Nam Can, Nam Can, Na Loi, Keng Du, Dooc May... are also in the same situation.

Officials from the Na Loi Commune People's Committee said that the entire commune has 104 hectares of rice, including wet rice and upland rice. Many areas of wet rice were damaged by rats, but the damage was not much because the rice fields were near residential areas, and people regularly visited the fields and used plastic tarps to prevent them. In the two villages of Huoi San and Don Boong of the commune, people mainly grow upland rice, the area damaged by rats accounted for about 60% of the cultivated area, and many fields were completely lost.

In Keng Du commune, Mr. Luong Van Ngam - Party Secretary and Chairman of the Commune People's Committee also said that the government is currently worried that in the near future, people will face hunger when their rice fields are damaged, leading to crop failure due to drought.mouseattack.

In the whole Ky Son district, more than 1,000 hectares of rice have been damaged by rats. Photo: Hoai Thu

Regarding this situation, Mr. Vi Oanh - Head of the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development of Ky Son district said that the district has received reports from communes about the situation of rats biting and damaging crops on people's rice and corn fields.

“In 2021, in Ky Son district, the hot and sunny weather interspersed with rains created favorable conditions for crops to grow, but also created conditions for pests and diseases to appear and cause damage to many areas of ginger, corn and upland rice. Specifically, root rot disease on ginger plants caused by fungi and bacteria, wild rats developed into large groups, destroying rice and corn plants in 14 communes. Regarding rice, the verified planting area was 4,807 hectares; of which the damaged area was 1,035 hectares. Regarding corn, the area damaged by rats was 120 hectares/618 hectares,” said Mr. Vi Oanh.

According to the staff of the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development of Ky Son district, the reason for the increasing number of rats is due to the increasingly diverse crop structure and agricultural seasons; along with that, the large area of ​​​​swidden land is a favorable condition for rats to live, reproduce and develop quickly. Meanwhile, the prevention measures are almost ineffective due to the rugged mountainous terrain, the swidden land is far from residential areas... After receiving information and reports from the communes, the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development coordinated with the Agricultural Service Center to direct the communes to use rat extermination measures according to the instructions of the professional agency.

Ky Son residents kill rats manually. Photo: Contributor

In addition to guiding people to prevent rats from destroying crops, the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development of Ky Son also proposed that the District People's Committee have a direction to request rice to support hunger relief for people. The reason is that the area of ​​rice and corn lost due to rats is not included in the regulations promulgated in Decision No. 48/2017/QD-UBND dated June 5, 2017 of the People's Committee of Nghe An province, regulating policies to support agricultural production to restore production in areas damaged by natural disasters and epidemics in the province.

To ensure effective rat extermination, the district's agricultural service center has organized propaganda and instructed farmers to apply a combination of rat extermination measures, focusing on biological and manual measures, cleaning fields, clearing banks, bushes, abandoned fields, and ridges to destroy rat habitats.

At the same time, take advantage of the harvest with the motto "green house is better than old field", using Biorat biological rat bait, various types of clamp traps, snap traps, cutting traps, sticky traps, some communes use nylon to enclose the plots.

Or use pesticides in the list of permitted pesticides, less toxic to the environment such as: drugs with active ingredients Bromadiolone (Antimice 0.006GB, Cat 0.25WP, Broma 0.005AB, Killrat 0.005 Wax block); active ingredients Brodifacoum (Forwarat 0.005%, Klerat® 0.005% Wax block bait) and other active ingredients...