DHAKA - A POOR farmer from northern Bangladesh was crowned the country's rat killing champion on Thursday with a final score of 39,650 dead rodents after a year-long hunt.

Binoy Kumar Karmakar, 40, used traps, poison and flooding to kill his quarry, and collected their tails to prove his success rate and claim a prize from the government.

He collected a 14-inch Sony colour television for winning the competition for 2008, which was part of a nationwide drive to stop food supplies being eaten up by rats.

"During the year, our farmers killed around 25 million rats," agriculture department spokesman Abdul Halim told AFP. "Binoy Kumar Karmakar has been declared the champion for killing 39,650."

Officials estimate that up to 10 percent of Bangladesh's crops - mostly rice, wheat and potato - is devoured by millions of rats every year.

Last year an invasion of rats in Bangladesh's southeastern Chittagong hill tracts region wiped out crops and caused a famine in some remote villages.

The UN's World Food Programme distributed food aid to 120,000 people for four months after the invasion forced affected tribal people to live on wild roots. -- AFP