Indian farmers braced for rat plague
By Peter Foster in New Delhi
05/05/2007

Nearly 500,000 Indian farmers are facing the prospect of famine as a plague of rats that strikes once every 50 years threatens to destroy their crops, rice paddies and village granaries.

Efforts to control the rodent plague in the north east Indian state of Mizoram have led the local government to offer a reward of one rupee (1.2 pence) for every rat tail delivered to the authorities.

More than 400,000 rats have already been killed, creating piles of tails, which have to be counted by officials before reward money can be disbursed to the catchers.

The rat plague occurs once every 50 years in Mizoram - a tiny state of 900,000 people squeezed between India's borders with Bangladesh and Burma - and is linked to the flowering of a rare species of bamboo, the Mautam or melocanna baccifera. It flowers all together, dropping millions of protein-rich seeds that are devoured by the rats, causing a population explosion. When the seed supply is exhausted the rats move to crops and granaries. the rest