AIZOL TIMES –
Aizawl, Sep. 19: At least 177 villages have been ravaged by armies of rats in different parts of Mizoram as Mautam or gregarious bamboo flowering reaches its climax this year, state agriculture minister H. Rammawi informed the assembly here today.
Rammawi, in a written reply to a query from Sailothanga Sailo of the Mizoram People’s Conference, said that 70 villages had nothing to harvest as their paddy fields were completely devastated by rodents.
At least 65 villages lost half of their harvest and 42 villages have experienced low intensity destruction, he said.
He added that around 89,496 families in the state are wholly dependant on agriculture out of which 78,195 families are jhumias while 11,301 families are having wet rice cultivation.
Mautam is a strange ecological phenomenon that occurred in a cycle of every 48 years causing extreme hardship to the populace of this tiny hilly north eastern state as the society is mainly agrarian one.
Mautak or melocanna baccifera comprised of at least 95 per cent of the total bamboo population in the state which flowered from last year and resulted in rat population bloom.
Village elders said that multiplication of rodents was caused by the rats consuming the seeds of the bamboo.
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