Bangladesh awards farmer who killed 83,000 rats

DHAKA, Bangladesh (AP) - Bangladesh on Wednesday awarded a farmer who killed more than 83,000 rats and launched a monthlong campaign nationwide to kill millions more, to protect crops and reduce the need for food imports.

Mokhairul Islam, 40, won a first prize of a color television for killing some 83,450 rats in the past nine months in Gazipur district near the South Asian country's capital, Dhaka. He collected their tails for proof.

"I am so happy to get this honor," Islam told The Associated Press after receiving a 14-inch television and a certificate amid cheers at an official ceremony packed with 500 farmers and officials. "I had no idea that the government gives prizes for this."

"This is an exciting moment. I will continue to kill them," he vowed.

Officials say the impoverished nation imports some 3 million tons of food annually, while the Ministry of Agriculture estimates that rodents annually destroy 1.5 million to 2 million tons of food.

"We can cut the import of food by at least half if we can succeed in this year's campaign," said Wais Kabir, executive chairman of the Bangladesh Agriculture Research Council.

He asked everyone, especially farmers, to take on the killing mission as a sport. The government has said it will train mainly farmers and students for this year's campaign.

"Killing rats is not that easy, it needs training," Kabir said.

Islam said he mainly used poison to kill the rats at his poultry farm, and that the cull has paid off as the rodents now scavenged less.

"Previously I needed 33 sacks of poultry feed per week, now I need less than 30," he said.

Fakhrul Haque Akanda, a farmer from northern Bangladesh and the second-prize winner, killed some 37,450 rats mostly with traps, some he invented.

"These bloody rats are my enemy, they destroy my gardens," Akanda said.

"Please pray for me so that I can continue my mission, and teach and motivate others to join me," he told the audience before taking his prize, also a television.

Last year, the U.N. World Food Program launched a monthslong food aid project in the country's southeast after a plague of rats devoured rice crops.