Millions of mice have invaded Bulgaria's northeastern wheat belt region of Dobrudzha and are threatening to turn it into a desert by devastating next year's grain crops, now sprouting in the fields.
Farmers say mice hordes were reproducing and spreading quickly because of the unusually mild weather conditions in Bulgaria in mid-winter.
"I have done farming for over 35 years and I had never before seen such a disaster," says Dimitar Kantardzhiev, chairman of the union of grain producers in Dobrich.
Almost 90 percent of the 112,000 hectares of wheat and barley crops in the region of Dobrich are criss-crossed by mice tunnels and perforated by their holes.
Experts have seen the concentration of mice spiral upwards, especially during the last two months.
Grain stocks, however, have not been threatened by the hordes of hungry rodents yet. In 2004 Bulgaria exported 624,000 tonnes of wheat out of 3.59 million tonnes of produce, and 281,000 tonnes of barley out of 1.07 million tonnes of crops, Agriculture Ministry data show.
"If we can treat the fields with chemicals, what is to be done about the forests and the road ditches where the mice multiply before invading the fields," complains Kantardzhiev who has sown 1,600 hectares of wheat.
Spring-like temperatures in Dobrich, where thermometers this week soared to 19 degrees Celsius, throw farmers into despair.
"If nature does not help us, we will be lost. Rain and cold can do away with part of the mice," says Stoyan Kovachev, a farmer from the Black Sea town of Kavarna to the east, who works 5,000 hectares of wheat.
"The unusually mild and dry weather during the winter months is stimulating this terrible boom in mice reproduction: a mouse of 20 days can bear a population of dozens. If the problem is not solved until April, wheat and barley sprouts will all be chomped up and the yields will be destroyed," he adds.
Around 500,000 hectares or a half of all wheat and barley crops sown last fall in Bulgaria are hit by the disaster.
Irreparable damage has been done to 25,000 hectares of grain where crops would have to be sown again next spring. Agriculture Minister Mehmed Dikme has promised government subsidies for farmers to buy pesticides.
"He has to be quick because we are being ruined," says Velika Slavova, president of a farmers' cooperative in Ichirkovo, in the Silistra region to the northeast.
"The mice, ten times more numerous than usual, invaded at first some badly worked fields in our cooperative. The remains of plants and weeds left in the fields, which have not been ploughed deep enough, have attracted the mice," she adds.
"The fertile lands are divided into small fields, whose owners rent them out for short periods, and this does not permit the farmers to devise a long-term strategy," explains Ivan Ganev, president of the cooperative union of Silistra.
The lands, nationalized during communism, were returned after its fall in 1989 to their owners, who did not have the means and machinery to work their fields. In the region of Silistra, 20 percent of all arable land belongs to small farmers who have neither joined a cooperative, nor rented their land out.
"The lands worked in a primitive manner are centers for the spread of disease. The crops are not in jeopardy yet we are facing a hard battle. Poison has to be placed by hand in every mouse hole, in order not to kill any wild life," Ivan Ganev says.
Farmers, however, are not that patient in their methods. Many ecological organizations have warned against their return to some banned pesticides like arsenic and zinc phosphate, which are dispersed on the land's surface.
Two months ago such pesticides poisoned dozens of eagles, deer, hares, partridges and pheasants.
Velichko Velichkov, a Ministry of Environment expert, denied the possibility of any risk for the people arising after the use of such pesticides.
"These substances cannot pass into the grain and the bread," he said.
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of
A prominent Christian leader has allegedly been stabbed at the altar during a Mass yesterday in southwest Sydney. Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel was saying Mass at Christ The Good Shepherd Church in Wakeley just after 7pm when a man approached him at the altar and allegedly stabbed toward his head multiple times. A live stream of the Mass shows the congregation swarm forward toward Emmanuel before it was cut off. The church leader gained prominence during the COVID-19 pandemic, amassing a large online following, Officers attached to Fairfield City police area command attended a location on Welcome Street, Wakeley following reports a number