Bio-Economic impact of vertebrate pest on crops with special reference to Rodent pest in Pakistan

2. Department of Forestry, Range and Wildlife Management
University of Agriculture Faisalabad

4.  Vertebrate pest are of great concern world wide and in
Pakistan too.
 Among these, rodent are the most important pests at the World
level.
 They are carrier of a number of human diseases and cause
heavy losses to field crops and stored grains (Ashfaq et al.,
2001).

5.  Among the field rats, mole rat and bandicoot rat are most
famous for digging burrows. The burrows are found in and
along the edges of the crop fields of wheat, sugarcane, rice,
etc.

6.  Rodents have three major impacts:
1) The first is the important damage they can cause to
field and horticultural crops, forest plantations, and
vegetation of range lands.
2) The second is the losses they cause post harvest to
stored food and feed products.

7.  The third and often unseen impact is on the health of small
farmers and urban communities, and hence influences
productivity out-put of humans and health-care cost.
 NOTE:
Blind mole-rats ‘resistant to cancer’
(lung & Breast cancer)
http://pakistan.onepakistan.com.pk/news/health/2428
23-blind-mole-rats-resistant-to-cancers.html

9.  The first ever case of rodent damage to crops in Pakistan was
reported in 1956 from Sialkot District.
 A survey carried out revealed that the quantity of grains (rice
and wheat) lost due to rodents was enough to feed that
population of district (0.3 million) for 10 years.

10.  As long ago as 1927,Wagle drew attention to the occurrence of
rice-field rats in lower sindh. At that time losses in many areas
were said to range from 10 to 50%.
 Which is approximately equal to 15.75% reduction in rice
yield.

11.  Wagle (1927) found 600 ear heads of rice in some burrows
studied in lower Sindh.
 Fulk (1977) found 93 kg of hoarded rice per hectare in Sindh
which was equal to 10% of the total yield of the crop.
 Prakash (1976) reported that up to 450 kg/ha of various grains
may be damaged due to food hoarding.

12.  In Pakistan, rain fed as well as winter irrigated wheat
crops are highly exposed to rodent attack in both
Punjab & sindh.

13.  Fulk and Akhtar, also report that many rice fields in thatta
district during 80’s which were completely harvested by rats.
 Complete & partial destruction of millet and gowar crops has
been recorded from tharparkar.
 In 1989 outbreaks of Hairy-footed gerbil was recorded by the
staff of VPCL (vertebrate pest control lab), Karachi.

14.  As a result of this 13,748 & 3,995 ton of millet and gowar
were lost due to rodent damaging in districts (Khokhar &
Rizvi, 1991).

15.  Forest resources, also, are influenced badly by
multiple wildlife species.
 The most important aspect of porcupine damage, in
Pakistan, occurs in forestry & reforestation areas,
Nawaz & Ahmed (1974) calculated a loss of 1,36,136
cft of wood in Changa manga plantations.

16.  Value of which was estimated at PKR. 0.9 million annualy
greave and khan (1978) estimated the annual value of
porcupine damaged trees in changa manga plantations around
U.S$ 25 per hectare.

17.  Khan et al. (2000) estimated that 108 kg of potato
seed per hectare are 18% of the total seed cultivated
was lost due to porcupine damage.

18.  One of the best estimates of rodent impact post-harvest is
from a detailed study of rodent pest in central Punjab in
Pakistan, and the result from this study to national level.
 it was estimated that 0.33 billion metric ton (rice, maize,
wheat) worth of US $ 30 million were consumed by house rats
in the villages of Pakistan every year (Mushtaq-UL-Hassan
1992).
 The study did not consider the impact of rats in and around
major cities.

19.  Recently (2005-2007), scientist of VPCL, karachi
implemented an ALP project on the management of rodents
infesting date-palm orchards at NOK_KUNDI and mushkale,
Balochistan.
 The study revealed rodent damage of 22.1% to trees in Nok-
Kundi, 20.1% in turbat, and 13.4% in panjgour.

20.  Alone in Nok-kundi, the yield of infested trees reduced by 25-
50% resulting in the harvest of low quality yield.
 Economic losses of PKR.5.33 million were calculated only in
Nok-Kundi which indicated the seriousness of the problem.

21.  Ashfaq, M., MA Saleem and F. Ahmad. 2001. Grain
storage management (in Urdu). Uni. Agri. Press.
296pp.
 Harrison, D.L. 1972. The mammals of Arabia. Vol.I II,
Ernest Benn Ltd. London.
 Husain, S.R. 2005. External structure of Nesokia indica
burrows and their distribution in cropland and some
non-cropland sites. Pak. J. Agric. Sci., 42(1-2): 78-
81.
 Lay, D.N. 1967. A study of mammals of Iran resulting
from the street expeditions of 1962-63. Fieldiana
Zool., 54: 1-282.

22.  Poche, R.M., P. Sultana, S.J. Evans, M.E. Haque, MA
Karim and MA Siddique. 1982. Nesokia indica
from Bangladesh. Mammalia, 64: 547-549.
 Roberts, T.J. 1977. The mammals of Pakistan. Ernest
Benn Ltd. London
 Samiet, A.C. 1978. Laboratory studies on Nesokia
indica, working paper, vertebrate pest control
centre. Univ. Campus Karachi.
 Wagle, P.V. 1927. The rice rats of lower Sind and their
control. J. Bomb. Nat. Hist. Soc., 32: 330-338.