A rodent plague has decimated crops in Australia as rapidly breeding rats devour sugarcane fields.
Crops in north Queensland have been ruined, with the rat infestation widespread in the Herbert River Valley near Townsville – almost 1,000 miles north of Brisbane.
Rat numbers are usually kept in check by the wet season but an unusually dry spell of weather has allowed them to breed.
A single rat can create 460 offspring in a single year, allowing for rapid population growth.
It had been anticipated that 2023 would be one of the best years on record for sugarcane farmers, but the bumper crop is now being consumed by swarms of hungry rats instead.
The Sun reported Lawrence Di Bella, a local farmer, as saying: "Within two weeks, whole fields will disappear.
"It's the worst rat year that I've seen in my working career in the industry."
Di Bella added: "You can see the paddock is alive.
"You can see little animals popping up and down everywhere in the fields."
There is a reluctance to use baiting to control and eradicate pest numbers, with the method seen as a last resort.
Baiting can kill predators that consume rat carcasses, potentially wiping out native species.
The east coast of Australia also saw rodents rampage through crops in 2021, when a mouse plague caused huge disruption.
On that occasion the decision was taken to blitz the rapidly growing mouse infestation with thousands of litres of rodent poison dubbed "napalm for mice".
For months, tens of millions of mice plagued a 600-mile stretch of farm land on the eastern coast between Brisbane and Melbourne.
The critters decimated crops and food storage units, as well as invading homes, schools and hospitals.
