Rodent Specialist from NPPTI Hyderabd, Dr AM Mohan Rao explaining the kind of rodent found in Peren District. The Nagaland Agriculture Department has launched ‘a month long’ Rodent management campaign programme under Peren District at New Beisumpui village in Peren district on April 28.
It is learnt that the Peren area has been facing an increase in rodent population due to bamboo flowering especially since last year. Some villages are said to be facing a near famine like situation with the rodents destroying all the paddies.
Formally launching the month long rodent management campaign, the Director of Agriculture, Dr Supong Kietzar, exhorted the gathered villagers from eight villages that the department of agriculture needs their cooperation in checking the menace of rodents in the wake of the bamboo flowering in the area.
He said that if the villagers refuse to cooperate with the department especially in controlling the menace of rodents, then it will be their great loss.
In this regard, he requested the Village Council Members to disseminate the information about rodent control from the training to fellow villagers in their respective villages.
Kietzar further asserted that the government policy, at present, is to help those who work, and added that those who don not work won’t be extended any help by the government. Rodent Specialist from Hyderabad, Dr AM Mohan Rao while addressing the villagers, asserted that the task of controlling the menace of rodent does not depend only on the individual, but on the community as a whole.
“The grain saved by rodent damage is the additional grain produced,” Dr Rao asserted. He expressed hope that he would see ‘smiling faces of the villages’ six months from now on after the rodent management programme is initiated.
Speaking on the sidelines of the programme, Dr Rao disclosed that bamboo flowering in Nagaland occured much later than when it began in Mizoram, and therefore the ‘reaction’ time for Nagaland is lesser than Mizoram state.
However he asserted that the consequences would be more or less same as that of Mizoram- i.e. the state is likely to face a famine like situation.
The Deputy Director of ‘Plant Protection’, Rongsenla disclosed that paddies in four villages in Peren district were completely destroyed by the rodents; the villagers demanded compensatory food grains from the department.
However, expressing helplessness, she asserted that it would be good if the ‘supply department’ would come in and supply the food grains to the distraught villagers.
She however, informed that the agriculture department has supplied ‘compensatory seeds like ginger, king chilly and other non preferred crops of the rodents to the farmers to sustain their livelihood.
The Chairman of New Beisumpui, while speaking at the function, disclosed that the villagers are apprehensive that the rats will attack the fields intensively this year since the bamboo flowering has stopped.
He further informed that the rats attacked the paddies last year during the time of harvesting and that some villagers are facing a lot of problem due to the rodent attack.
However, he expressed hope that with this campaign on rodent management, the affect of rodents on paddies in Peren would be checked.