CABANATUANCITY – Farmers have new agent against rodents, direct from the housewives’ favorite kitchen supplies – bagoong.
Fish paste, agriculture officials said, a fish by-product has been proven an effective rat exterminator, particularly with its somehow offensive odor that attracts rodents like commercially produced chemicals.
Redentor Gatus, Department of Agriculture regional director for Central Luzon, said that rats go crazy over the smell of boneless bagoong, attracting the pests like magnet.
He explained that said bagoong is mixed with powdered zinc phosphide, a known rat poisoning agent, and binglid (broken rice) and other organic materials. He said one pack of boneless bagoong mixed with zinc phosphide with 150 grains of rice made the potent mix a deadly potion against rats.
“Rats are somehow magnetized by the smell of bagoong and they gather like a crowd to where its odor comes from,” he said.
Gatus said the use of bagoong was part of the massive rat poisoning campaign dubbed “Oplan Pain” launched by the DA with the provincial agriculturist office and the various municipal agricultural offices in Nueva Ecija to eradicate rat infestation.
Aside from zinc phosphide dispersed by agriculture technicians , the DA regional office has also equipped municipal agricultural offices in the affected towns with flame throwers, the nozzle of which are placed in small circular thresholds found in levies and dikes called rat burrows where the rats live.
With the heat generated by flame throwers, rats are driven out of the burrows and out in the open where they are bludgeoned to death with the use of wooden canes. This is normally done before and after harvest as part of land-clearing operations to reduce the risk of rat infestation.
Farmers also get pointers from agriculture experts on the various means to eliminate rats apart from the use of zinc phosphide and flame throwers, said Jun Espiritu, head of the DA Central Luzon information office. Among these measures, he said, include narrowing of the sizes of their dikes and levies.
He said dikes and levies should be no more than six inches in height and eight inches wide so that rats won’t have space to live and by digging the holes and burrows found in their farms.
Farmers, he added, are also advised to circumfuse their farms with plastic sheets, a method known as total rat barrier system, one month before the regular planting.
Gatus said that based on the latest rat situation report, only 4.34 percent of the total rice fields in 16 Nueva Ecija towns had been infested.
Fish paste, agriculture officials said, a fish by-product has been proven an effective rat exterminator, particularly with its somehow offensive odor that attracts rodents like commercially produced chemicals.
Redentor Gatus, Department of Agriculture regional director for Central Luzon, said that rats go crazy over the smell of boneless bagoong, attracting the pests like magnet.
He explained that said bagoong is mixed with powdered zinc phosphide, a known rat poisoning agent, and binglid (broken rice) and other organic materials. He said one pack of boneless bagoong mixed with zinc phosphide with 150 grains of rice made the potent mix a deadly potion against rats.
“Rats are somehow magnetized by the smell of bagoong and they gather like a crowd to where its odor comes from,” he said.
Gatus said the use of bagoong was part of the massive rat poisoning campaign dubbed “Oplan Pain” launched by the DA with the provincial agriculturist office and the various municipal agricultural offices in Nueva Ecija to eradicate rat infestation.
Aside from zinc phosphide dispersed by agriculture technicians , the DA regional office has also equipped municipal agricultural offices in the affected towns with flame throwers, the nozzle of which are placed in small circular thresholds found in levies and dikes called rat burrows where the rats live.
With the heat generated by flame throwers, rats are driven out of the burrows and out in the open where they are bludgeoned to death with the use of wooden canes. This is normally done before and after harvest as part of land-clearing operations to reduce the risk of rat infestation.
Farmers also get pointers from agriculture experts on the various means to eliminate rats apart from the use of zinc phosphide and flame throwers, said Jun Espiritu, head of the DA Central Luzon information office. Among these measures, he said, include narrowing of the sizes of their dikes and levies.
He said dikes and levies should be no more than six inches in height and eight inches wide so that rats won’t have space to live and by digging the holes and burrows found in their farms.
Farmers, he added, are also advised to circumfuse their farms with plastic sheets, a method known as total rat barrier system, one month before the regular planting.
Gatus said that based on the latest rat situation report, only 4.34 percent of the total rice fields in 16 Nueva Ecija towns had been infested.
