Final part of commercial rat control series: Rat Control Practices in Agriculture
As you can imagine, controlling rodent pests on farms is quite a challenging endeavor. One problem is that rodents eat selectively, so a farmer might not notice a lot of crop loss in many different places. However, if acreage is examined carefully, trouble spots can be found, and then damage to crops collectively calculated. Victor Pest Control gives some alarming statistics as to how much damage rodents do to crops:
“In California, for instance, agriculture is an economic cornerstone of the state, which distributes much of its products throughout the rest of the nation. Growing $39 billion in annual crops, California leads the nation’s agricultural sector. The state is the lone supplier of everything from almonds and walnuts to figs, olives, and artichokes. Additionally, California is a leading supplier of avocados, tomatoes, grapes, and various other fruits and vegetables.
However, the state has long had a problem with crop destruction caused by pests, including squirrels and even blackbirds. Combating this problem has been a costly process for growers, but they’ve managed to reduce infestations with the employment of pesticides, fences, and traps.
- $168 million to $504 million in estimated loss of revenue
- 2,100 to 6,300 jobs lost
In Monterey County, California, crop damage caused by rodent infestation was responsible for between $44 million and $128 million in annual revenue loss, as well as 515 to 1,514 jobs.”
As you can see, ecologically sound rodent control practices can help control the losses of crops (and profits) to farmers, but help keep down food prices for the general population.
Weather
The second issue with pest control is the weather. When rain regularly comes, rodents multiply—
Rodent Control in Tropical Crop Agriculture
For instance, rodent control for tropical agriculture such as in Florida and California must deal with alternating dry and wet seasons, when rodent reproduction can vary wildly. The approaches as described by a study done by Fall and Fiedler on the USDA website called “Rodent Control in Practice (2015) are: sustained baiting method, which was developed in the 1970’s is a continuous, low level input which is monitored and replaced as bait consumption increases during the crop season, and pulsed baiting
“In any rodent damage control effort there are three basic strategies to choose from: tolerance of the damage, management of the damage, or eradication of rodents. Tolerance is practised by both farmers and government officials. It is usually selected because of apathy, a lack of awareness of crop damage, unfamiliarity with other options, or because of religious, social or legal taboos against harming animals. Tolerance may be useful when control requires more effort and cost than simply accepting crop losses. Permanent or temporary eradication of rodents from crop areas is generally not practical or ecologically sound.”
With this in mind, tropical agriculture in other countries is beginning to experiment with artificial intelligence.
Artifical Intelligence Experimentation Being Done in Spain
Spain is famous for its olive trees, and thus has an olive industry that makes Spain number one in the world for olive oil production, and their export turnover exceeded 2 billion euros (2,324,298,000.00 USD). According to South EU Summit, most of Spain’s olive production is centered around its southern coast near Andalucía. Right now, artificial intelligence is being used to study how the olive’s biggest enemy, the fruit fly, might be controlled, but this could also in future be extended to rodent control:
“The Andalusian Phytosanitary Alert and Information Network (RAIF) is a project of the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Rural Development financed by the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development (EAFRD), which provides updated information on the phytosanitary status of the main crops of Andalusia.
The network relies on the work and collaboration of about 700 field technicians, mainly from the production sector itself, as well as 4,621 control stations distributed in different crop areas, with which they exchange the information and data they collect.”
Meanwhile, back in North America….
Big Data is already being used in US agriculture, and we discussed in an earlier article how
collaborative practices amongst farmers and in urban areas in reporting pest infestations in conjunction with a multipronged pest control strategy utilizing traps, rodenticides and GIS are helping US and Canadian farmers control rodents. Crop rotation is a disruption method that disrupts the life cycle of many pests and is good for maintaining good topsoil.
Cisse W. Sprague in her article “Advances in IPM Rodent Control in Agriculture,”
“There are three main classes of rodenticide poisons in use today. The oldest are the acute poisons which include compounds such as arsenic, strychnine, zinc phosphide, sodium monofluoroacetate, and others. Of these, zinc phosphide is the safest and the only one still allowed for use in many developed
Anticoagulants are also used, but while avoiding the bait shyness problem, present a resistance problem in consequent generations of rats so become less effective over time.
Trapping Is Underrated, and an Excellent Strategy for Farmers According to the University of Florida
The University of Florida Agricultural Extension, on the other hand, advocates trapping as an underrated, effective, ecological strategy for rodent management on the farm. In their article “Controlling Rats and Mice Around the Farm,” they point out that rats and mice don’t really have a large range of movement, and thus, respond well to trapping:
“Since rodents have a small home range, rats travel no more than 100 feet and mice less than 30 feet
The University of Massachusetts at Amherst Center for Agriculture, Food and the Environment also encourages the use of traps as well as keeping barns clean, garbage picked up,
“Snap or box traps are useful in eliminating rodents. Rats are more distrustful of anything new in their environment and it may take 4-5 days before they are used to the traps. Live traps are good to use near runways used by mice and rats.”
The University of Florida Agricultural Extension promotes IPM using both traps and baits,
We concur with both universities regarding implementing traps as part of your IPM, and we really want to become part of your farm operation’s Integrated Pest Management program. We have a wide variety of traps for all your needs, including squirrel, mole, rat and mice infestations, and we are here to consult with you whether you are just starting to put together or manage your current Integrated Pest Management strategies. Tell your neighbors about us.
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