CEREAL FARMERS LOSING £175 MILLION TO RABBIT DAMAGE?

Are the U.K. Rabbits eating the equivalent of 4,000,000,000 loaves of bread a year

or bread for 1 year for 80 million people?

BurrowBlaster can help Save Your November Winter Wheat from the Rabbits.

According to DEFRA:

1.                           Rabbits spent most time in the wheat between November and May.

2.                           The total number of visits made to the wheat field increased rapidly after the crops are established in October, reflecting the very attractive qualities of wheat for rabbits.

3.                           Between November and January rabbits spend approximately 34% of their time feeding on the crop and there were no differences between months in the average amount of time spent grazing.

4.                           Average yield losses to cereal were 1% rabbit ha for winter wheat, 0.8% rabbit ha for grass grown for silage (Dendy et al. 2003) and 0.5% rabbit ha for spring barley  (Dendy et al. in press).

The Rabbits cost a group of 40 Farmers £650,000

An example of the level of damage being caused by the rabbits can be seen in this example where pest controllers on a group of 40 farms shot 26,000 rabbits over a 12 month period. At the end of the 12 months there were more rabbits there than when they started. Clearly shooting on it’s own may be a fruitless exercise if the intent is to reduce the rabbit population. Why? Because as fast as they are shot they are breeding underground. Destruction of Burrows stops the breeding by removing habitat.

Using the Defra statistics and published farming costs, 26,000 rabbits on 40 farms would have eaten 260 hectares at a loss to the farmers of between £0.26 million and £0.65 million. (see more details on this calculation below)

The rabbit population has exploded over recent years. The latest estimate is that the rabbit population is up from 30 million in 2002 to between 60 and 80 million in 2008. It is clear from this type of group that there is no real alternative to rabbit control other than to complement the shooting, ferreting and gassing with the removal of habitat. It follows that the removal of warrens surrounding cereal crops will greatly reduce the breeding habitat and it must follow that the number of rabbits in the area and therefore the resulting damage to the crops will be substantially reduced.

According to Defra, 1 Rabbit eats 1% of a hectare of  winter wheat*

There is no real alternative to rabbit control other than to complement the shooting, ferreting and gassing with the removal of habitat with a BurrowBlaster

HOW MUCH WILL YOU LOSE TO THE RABBITS THIS WINTER?

Using the Defra statistics and the associated costs for a 1^st Drill, it is estimated that the losses in the U.K. will run into the 100’s of millions of £’s.

If only 30% of the U.K. rabbit population feed off the new cereal crops, then the U.K. cereal crop losses could reach or exceed £175 million in wasted expenditure and lost revenues to the farming community this year. It also means that around 1.5 million tonnes of cereals won’t be harvested and that will make a lot of bread. In fact that is over 4,000,000,000 (4 billion) loaves of bread. We can make about 3400 loaves from 1 tonne of wheat. Multiply that by lost tonnes to get your lost loaves. In British commercial milling 4.5 million tonnes of flour is made from 5.5 million tonnes of wheat

Rabbits are eating the equivalent of about

4,000,000,000 loaves of bread a year in the U.K.

How does that translate into food chain? In Britian we eat on average about 1 loaf of bread per person per week. 4,000,000,000 loaves will provide bread for about 80 million people for a whole year.

Calculate your own losses, the maths are simple.

Assume that there are 100 rabbits in warrens around each of your fields. Now Defra estimates that each Rabbit eats 1% of a hectare. From that you can see that 100 rabbits around any size field will eat 1 hectare of cereal. So if you have a 100 rabbits around 10 hectares you could lose 1 hectare. If you have 200 rabbits around the same field you could lose 2 hectares and so on. To estimate the damage and losses you are experiencing simply estimate the number of rabbits you have on your land, then divide by 100 and that will give you the number of hectares they will eat this winter.

Next, multiply the number of hectares by the yield you usually get per hectare (Dept. Agriculture & Rural Development estimate the UK average at 7.8 tonnes per hectare) and then multiply that by the price you would get per tonne of winter wheat. We have used £112 a tonne for the wheat for November 2009 sale. So a small farm with 300 rabbits would lose in real terms 3 hecatres at 7.8 yield at £112 per tonne is around £2600 lost income.  Now add the costs associated with cultivating those 3 acres and that is around £300 per hectare (see below). So for 3 accres the total loss is around £3000. Add 200 bales of straw per hectare at 50p per bale for the straw and pigeon damage caused by the rabbit damage and the total for small farmers is reasonably over the £4000 mark a year.

We have used costs associated with producing a crop of Winter Wheat on 1 hectare: as follows:

Seed (£61), Fertilizer (£105), Herbicide(£30), Fungicide(£75), Other sprays - foliar feeds, aphicides, etc., (£15) Sundries (e.g. twine) (£15) = Total £301⁽ⁱ⁾ per hectare – these are Dept. Agriculture & Rural Development estimates. Prices have moved since publishing the figure so use your own costs or use these to reach an approximate position).

Re Drill losses

If you re-drill, add to that the cost of re-drilling.

So, using the above methods and statistics, by the time you have drilled twice, rabbit damage could have cost the average small farmer as much as £4000 each year in real terms.

Not included in the £4000 losses are the cost of the shooters, ferreting and gassing. Also not included are the costs of the damage caused by pigeons as a result of the rabbit damage.

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2000 Rabbits on a farm will be costing the farmer as much as £60,000 for just one crop season.

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BurrowBlaster will stop these losses and pay for itself in days.

It is clear from recent results that there is no real alternative to rabbit control other than to complement the shooting, ferreting and gassing with the removal of habitat. It is proven that the removal of warrens surrounding cereal crops greatly reduces the number of rabbits in the area and the resulting damage to the crops.

¨     BurrowBlaster is the safest and most effective solution to the destruction of warrens for farmers across the U.K.

¨     BurrowBlaster enables the removal of the breeding habitat and thereby reduces the number of rabbits in the area.

¨     With BurrowBlaster the average farmer can save around £4000 in real expenditure and lost income each year.

¨     BurrowBlaster costs just £1595.00 plus VAT.

BurrowBlaster pays for itself in days.

November is only weeks away and your crops will be shooting soon. Don’t wait until it is to late, order your BurrowBlaster today.

For more information on the BurrowBlaster, please visit www.burrowblaster.co.uk or call 0870 458 7488 to arrange a demonstration.

References and notes:

Note 1.

All facts and figures used are taken from the sources listed below. Unfortunately we are unable to guarantee the accuracy of these reports, but farmers should easily be able to add in their own real costs and estimates to reach a conclusion on the real impact rabbit populations are having on their finances.

Department of Agriculture and Rural Development - http://eservices.ruralni.gov.uk/onlineservices/tools/crops/wheatgm.asp

Defra

http://randd.defra.gov.uk/Document.aspx?Document=VC0232_1722_FRP.doc

World warned on food price spiral

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/7284011.stm

Harvest Prospects

http://www.hgca.com/imprima/miprospects/vol11Issue05/minisite/2.htm

U.K. Agriculture

http://www.ukagriculture.com/uk_farming.cfm