Countermeasures of Grain Loss Caused by Rat Infestation

Rats can cause enormous losses to people. Annual grain loss caused by rats amounts to 50 million tons, enough to feed 250 million people for a year. Generally, rats can reduce grain yields by 5% in the fields and by 3% in warehouses. Causes of rat infestation:

● Rats are small and agile, eating a wide variety of food. They can survive with a meagre amount of food and are highly productive.

● The living environment of humans provides sufficient food and an ideal hiding place for rats.

To prevent an infestation of rats, the following efforts should be made:

● Organizing more effective public campaigns against rats

It is necessary to strengthen organizational efforts in launching the campaigns against rats, enhance advocacy and education, and engage both the general public and special task forces in the campaigns. Rat eradication activities are preferably conducted on both a regular and ad hoc basis, targeting the whole region or specific zones.

● Taking comprehensive prevention and control measures

Warehouses for grain or other foods need to have rodent-proof structures to effectively keep rats away. At the same time, sanitation should be ensured to leave no food to rats. If any rats appear in the warehouse, they should be killed in time.

● Staying informed to eradicate rats in a targeted manner

Before taking action, we need to understand the species, living habits, distribution and density of rats and take advantage of such information to get rid of them.

● Using rat poisons and traps alternately

If a poison is used for a long time, rats may have bait shyness and drug resistance. Likewise, if one kind of trap is used continually,it may not work as well as it did previously. Hence, the two methods should be used alternately.

●  Making continued efforts

As rats breed fast, it is unlikely to kill them all at once. Solid measures must be taken to control the rat population and density.