Current Events: Those rats in India are up to it again.

Joey Sawyer/ 6:30 pm EST/ February 8, 2008

Following a lead from an article I found on one of the news links from the blog, I found an interesting story that takes place in India. In the northeast regions of India, slash and burn farming is and has always been a way of life for the people. Being that there is a lot of bamboo in the area it is relatively easy to burn it down and grow crops in the new ashy topsoil. An old superstition from this region is that when the bamboo flowers it is a harbinger of famine. Some farmers respond by burning any flowering bamboo they see to prevent the coming disaster. The government refuses to lend aid to these areas because there is no scientific evidence to lead to the conclusion that bamboo equals famine, so it is dismissed as a silly superstition.

There have been many famines documented in the past couple hundred years that link these two phenomena, and now through scientific research they have shown that the superstition has base in fact.

The bamboo flowers very quickly, spreading copious amounts of seeds along the forest floor. Bamboo is related to grass, so picture someones overgrown lawn with grass seed spilling everywhere. There is a lot of it. This abundance of bamboo seeds means an abundance of food for seed eating rodents such as rats and mice. These seed munchers are quick and easy breeders, so in a situation with an abundance of food they sprout babies hither and thither. The large rodent population is well fed, with plenty left over and all is well, until it rains.

When the rainy season hits the seeds quickly germinate and begin to grow. Remember, it is giant grass and multiplies and grows quickly. Now there is food for herbivores, but the seed-eating rodents are out of luck. They must find sustenance for their now abundant population. Guess where they look…to the nearby farms that belong to the slash and burn farmers. They are surrounded by bamboo forest with a small farm in the middle, so they immediately become overrun with rats and mice. This problem affects a large area with many agrarian people, thus leading to mass famine, and presumably disease along with it.

Either these studies have not yet reached government officials, or they are still ignoring the problem. It is an entirely natural problem, so it goes to show that food shortages are often not the fault of people. It is not always due to oppression, war, or displacement. I think this is also a good microcosmic example we can learn from. The rats have a temporary abundance of food, but they have no idea it is temporary until the food is gone, then they turn to human food stores to sustain their otherwise unsustainable population. Whose seeds are we going to steal when we run out of food?