Rat meat in demand in Cambodia as inflation bites

Reuters
PHNOM PENH - The price of rat meat has quadrupled in Cambodia this
year as inflation has put other meat beyond the reach of poor people,
officials said on Wednesday.
With consumer price inflation at 37 percent according to the latest
central bank estimate, demand has pushed a kilogram of rat meat up to
around 5,000 riel ($1.28) from 1,200 riel last year.
Spicy field rat dishes with garlic thrown in have become particularly
popular at a time when beef costs 20,000 riel a kg.
Officials said rats were fleeing to higher ground from flooded areas
of the lower Mekong Delta, making it easier for villagers to catch
them.
"Many children are happy making some money from selling the animals to
the markets, but they keep some for their family," Ly Marong, an
agriculture official, said by telephone from the Koh Thom district on
the border with Vietnam.
"Not only are our poor eating it, but there is also demand from
Vietnamese living on the border with us."
He estimated that Cambodia supplied more than a tonne of live rats a
day to Vietnam.
Rats are also eaten widely in Thailand, while a state government in
eastern India this month encouraged its people to eat rats in an
effort to battle soaring food prices and save grain stocks.
($1 = 3,900 riel)

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