Armies of rodents have started invading paddy fields in the eastern and north eastern parts of Mizoram with the flowering of bamboo, signaling the advent of 'mautam' or the famine caused by bamboo flowering.
AIZWAL: Armies of rodents have started invading paddy fields in the eastern and north eastern parts of Mizoram with the flowering of bamboo, signaling the advent of 'mautam' or the famine caused by bamboo flowering.
James Lalsiamliana, a scientist in the state agriculture department, said that Myanmar border areas near Farkawn in Camphai district were the hardest hit during the past one week where villagers reported massive damage to crops by rodents.
He, however, could not ascertain whether the multitude of rodents came from neighbouring Myanmar or inside the state due to eating of bamboo seeds, known for their high reproductive affect on rats.
Lalsiamliana, who is now in Mizoram-Tripura-Assam border areas, educating the villagers on the impending 'mautam' said over phone that increase in rat population had also begun in the western parts even as only sporadic flowering was witnessed there.
"Villagers in the eastern and north-eastern parts of the state informed us that the armies of rats ravaged their paddy stems,'' he said, adding he and his colleagues would visit the eastern side next week to take stock of the situation.
Distribution of rodenticides was taken by the state government so far while farmers were earlier asked to cultivate alternative crops which would not be damaged by rats, he said.
Mautam is a strange ecological phenomenon when bamboo flowers and dies in a cycle of 50 years causing immense hardship to the people due to the prolific breeding of rats it ensures.
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