Rats!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I saw them many times during my last stay in South Cotabato. Rats!!!!!

One could learn from MindaNews (here Allen V. Estabillo, thank you very much Allen!), that agriculture personnel in South Cotabato province will launch in September an intensified campaign against the continuing rodent or rat infestation in the area that already devastated some 36,9 million Pesos worth of palay and corn crops.

Reynaldo Legaste, South Cotabato provincial agriculture officer, said they have declared the month of September as rodent control month in the entire province to give more focus on their continuing efforts to effectively reduce the pest's population and the impact of its infestation on farm crops.

Good luck to you and your staff, Sir!

Rats, rats - and more rats!

I wrote already about it several days ago:

http://www.germaninthephilippines.tropicalpenpals.com

Regarding to MindaNews more provinces in  Eastern  Mindanao and many parts of the Philippines have been reported attacked by swarms  of field rats , in an infestation that an official blamed on climate change and human interference in Nature's food chain.

After farmers in eight barangays in the northern hinterlands of Davao City whose farms were devastated appealed for help, reports indicated that areas in South Cotabato, North Cotabato and Sarangani areas were also attacked by rats.

My friend and City Agriculture Officer Leo Avila III said that rats attaked provinces in the Visayas and in the rice-producing areas in Central Luzon too. I learned from Leo Avila, he would also ask the Provincial Agriculture Office in Davao del Norte to confirm reports of rat infestation in its northwestern town of Talaingod which shares boundary with Davao City's rat-infested northern barnagys.

Taking necessary measures to lessen the rat infestation in rice and corn-producing areas in the provinces and put-up systems  of preventing future occurrences seem to be essential and inevitable.