What is StopRats?

Please have a look at our new StopRats videos on how to control rats

StopRats is a project funded by the European Union's ACP Science and Technology Programme 

The project is about rodent pests and the damage they cause in crop production, the loss and contamination of stored food after harvest and the many health problems inflicted on people and domestic animals through the transmission of rodent-borne diseases.

StopRats is officially led and managed by Professor Steven Belmain from the Natural Resources Institute of the University of Greenwich. The project is a collaboration with many experts from Madagascar, Namibia, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Swaziland and Tanzania.  More information about the StopRats team can be found on the Partner page. 

This website aims to provide information about the StopRats project as well as to act as a repository for general information about the problems rodents cause and ecologically-based solutions to manage rodents.  General information about rodents can be found on the Background pages, the Publication page and with respect to the different African countries involved.  

Raising awareness about rodents and their damage to people's livelihoods as well as delivering innovative ways to sustainably manage rodents are important goals of the StopRats project.  More details about the project can be found on the About the Project pages.  And if you have any questions about rodents, please make contact with us through our Contacts page.

The below video was broadcast (in Afrikaans) in South Africa on DSTV channel kykNET's breakfast programme Dagbreek. The programme highlights one of the major rodent pest species affecting maize production and efforts of StopRats partners at the ARC-PPRI on a project about ecologically-based rodent pest management in maize crop fields in the summer rain fall regions of South Africa. The project aims to work with farmers to develop effective and environmentally sustainable solutions to manage the problems caused.