Losses of Stored Foods Due to Rats at Grain Markets in

We estimated the sizes of rat populations (Rattus rattus) at 5 wholesale grain markets in four major cities of Punjab Province, Pakistan: Faisala-bad, Lahore, M&an, and Rawalpindi. We estimated the populations using data from removal trapping and by measuring the change in activity at inked tracking tiles before and after the trapping. Population estimates ranged from Jive rats/grain shop in the new grain market in Faisalabad to 61 rats/grain shop at Lahore. We did surveys of rat populations in 13 out of 40 other smaller city and town markets in Punjab and confirmed they were rat-infested, with six ranked as severe, three as medium, andfour as having little problems. We estimated an average grain shop in a Punjab market to contain 40 rats. Rice is the main commodity stored in these grain shops. In our laboratory, on average, adult roof rats ate 12.7g of,rice nightly. We estimated the annual grain losses/shop due to rodent consumption, contamination, spillage, and wastage to be 740 kg. There are about 5.500 shops in the major and minor markets: the annual losses would approx-imate 4000mtlyear, or about 0.3 % of the estimated I.225 million mt that move through the markets yearly