BRISBANE – Sugar cane fields in Australia’s northern Queensland are overrun with rats, threatening one of the region’s most valuable crops. 

The infestation follows a period of heavy rain which boosted plant growth, creating ideal conditions for the rodents to reproduce exponentially.

The rats have caused such damage that blocks of sugar cane left standing in fields because they were too wet to harvest are no longer viable.

The plague is a devastating blow for some growers, who were looking at a good season until their crops were destroyed. Just a few nibbles from the rodents are enough to cause significant damage. 

About 400,000 tonnes of cane that were too wet to harvest are sitting in fields and “getting munched away” by the rats, said Lawrence Di Bella, the manager of Herbert Cane Productivity Services, which provides technical support to the industry. Some growers estimate as much as half their crop is gone, he said. 

Carol Mackee, director of the Australian Cane Farmers Association, which represents growers from all over Queensland and New South Wales, experienced this firsthand. Rats have completely eaten one variety of the 14,000 tonnes of sugar cane on her farm, which she left unharvested due to rain. 

The Australian industry produces raw and refined sugar from cane.

About 95 per cent of the sugar produced in the country is grown in Queensland. BLOOMBERG