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. Rats have destroyed everything. 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 since the last crop 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 Mr. Chua No Cho and Vu Ba Dia's households are the households with the most rice fields damaged by rats in Na Ni and Huoi Mu villages. In Na Ni village, people grow 14.2 hectares of upland rice, of which 5.8 hectares were damaged by rats. In Huoi Mu village, there are 13 hectares of upland rice, and through inspection, it was found that 7.3 hectares had been bitten in half by rats, eating the grains, causing the rice fields to be barren, and peoplecrop 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, the commune officials and families, the village executive committees went to the field many times to check and assess the damage, then reported to the 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 no longer able to harvest in the fields, many rice fields of the people were completely lost due to strong damage by 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 a similar situation.

According to the Na Loi Commune People's Committee, the entire commune has 104 hectares of rice, including wet rice and upland rice. Many areas of wet rice have been damaged by rats, but the damage is not much because the rice fields are near residential areas, and people regularly visit the fields and put up 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 accounts for about 60% of the cultivated area, many upland fields are completely lost.

In Keng Du commune, Mr. Luong Van Ngam - Party Secretary and Chairman of the Commune People's Committee also said that the authorities are 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, the 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 ​​upland fields is a favorable condition for rats to live, reproduce and develop quickly. Meanwhile, the control measures are almost ineffective due to the rugged mountainous terrain, the upland fields are 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 people 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 announced 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 embankments to destroy rat habitats.

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

Or use pesticides in the list of permitted pesticides that are less toxic to the environment such as: pesticides 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...