Wild hares destroy Jaffna crops

[TamilNet, Friday, 24 October 1997, 23:59 GMT]
Wild hares have become a major menace to farmers in the Pandatharippu Ilavalai area who are trying to clear and cultivate their lands that have been abandoned for more than two years.

Once rarely seen in these parts except in the small shrub lands by some fields, the hares have tremendously multiplied during the period when this part of Jaffna remained a no man's land.

Several large fields were overgrown with shrub and wild creepers in the two years after people fled Pandatharippu during Operation Leap Forward in July 1995.

Farmers who are struggling in these parts to restart cultivation are have little resources and time to clear the shrub and the undergrowth. Hence they say it is difficult to control the hares which regularly eat up the vegetables planted in the fields.

Vermin have also become rampant in the area, attacking the crops and chicken coops of the local farmers. It is difficult to control the hares and the vermin because of the curfew which comes into effect after dark.

Meanwhile the an international agency called the World Food Program has donated thirty water pumps to 150 poor farmers in the Ilavalai- Mathagal area.