Vertebrate pest problems in agricultural crops, forest plantations and godowns of our country need serious consideration. The extent of possible losses caused by the vertebrate pests, particularly rats, mice, porcupine, wild boar and birds, is often not fully recognized till either the losses are unbearable or there is complete failure of the crop. The importance of vertebrate pest control is realized from the fact that colossal losses amounting to millions of rupees are caused to our agricultural crops and stored food by the vertebrate pests. The VPM activities were started at NARC since 1985 under the umbrella of FSM project of USAID. It is one of the important R&D activities of PARC that is not available in provincial public set up of agricultural research and extension.

Vertebrate Pest Management activity in Pakistan was initiated in 1973 with establishment of Vertebrate Pest Control Centre in Karachi. The center was developed as a regional research and training institute in south Asia. Department of Plant Protection, Government of Pakistan initiated this project with technical and financial assistance of UNDP/FAO. The department of plant protection handed over this establishment to PARC in 1974. The UNDP/FAO assistance continued till June 1980 and thereafter it became a regular activity of PARC. The VPM activity at NARC was initiated in 1985 under the umbrella of Vertebrate Pest Control Project – a component of GOP/USAID funded project on Food Security Management. Some scientists from Vertebrate Pest Control Laboratory, Karachi, were transferred to the USAID project at NARC over the life of this project. The USAID project recommended institutionalizing VPM activity at NARC. Simultaneously, PARC management realized that it was difficult to cover whole country from Karachi; therefore, Vertebrate Pest Control Laboratory at NARC was established in 1989 with the mandate to manage the VPM activities in Punjab, NWFP, FATA and AJ&K leaving the responsibility of Sindh and Baluchistan with VPCL, Karachi.

Vertebrate Pest Management unit, NARC was notified as a regular activity of PARC with provision of funds under core budget during 1990-91. It continued to function as an independent programme till 1999-2000 then it was merged in IPMI, now again it is working as independent program as VPMP under Institute of Plant &Environmental Protection (IPEP). 

The task assigned to this unit is to undertake research in various disciplines of vertebrate pests and to develop safe, effective and economical control methods, which are suitable and practicable for traditional farmers. The research findings are disseminated to the farmers and other stake-holders in collaboration with the provisional agricultural functionaries and NGOs. Now the Programme has assigned to commercialize the vertebrate pest management products and provision of services. A product “PARC Rat Kill” has been formulated for rodent control and is available for sale at PATCO sale point.