Mizoram’s rodent outbreak affects 132 villages, situation may worsen

Rice fields and crops have been largely destroyed in different parts of Mizoram due to a sudden increase in the rodent population. 

Agriculture Department officials told IndiaTodayNE that Rodent attacks on crops and paddy fields are first reported in July 2022 in a few places, but now reports came from every district in the state, and now,  more than 132 villages are affected.

The department official also said that they believe that the sudden rise of rodents is caused by the upcoming Bamboo Flowering believed to occur in 2025.

"The Department has been pre-planned in many ways to tackle the situation, as it is not new for the state to witness bamboo flowering and the consequences'', she added. The rise of the Rodent population is believed to be a pre-symptom of the ‘Thingtam’  or flowering of  Bambusa Tulda due in 2025

Bambusa tulda Roxb. is a semi-deciduous caespitose bamboo endemic to Indo-Burma. It is known as ‘rawṭhing’ in Mizoram, and its mass gregarious flowering is called ṭhingtâm. ‘Ṭhingtâm’ has a cycle of about 45-50 years. The first ṭhingtâm, recorded in the region was in 1880, which was preceded by mautâm (gregarious flowering of Melocanna baccifera) in 1862; i.e., the ṭhingtâm phenomenon occurred 20 years after the Mautâm. The last ṭhingtâm was recorded in 1981. However, there has been a localised ṭhingtâm at Zawlnuam, a village at northwestern Mizoram. The first flowering was recorded in 2015. 

Led by district Agriculture department officials, farmers in some rodent attacked areas started to carry out widescale poisoning of rodents and the officials gave practical training on how to use rat poison to the farmers at the paddy fields, and distributed rat poison to the farmers for free. Farmers used two types of poison, Zinc phosphate and Roban to kill the rats.

The current rodent outbreak doesn't have much impact in some areas yet but some farmers, they lost all of their rice or crop cultivation.