Farmers spend sleepless nights guarding their paddy crop from wild animals, especially elephants, boars and primates, inside or on the fringes of the forests in Wayanad district.
In the dark, many farmers look for wild animals from the treetop enclosures they have set up. The usual strategies to scare them away are falling flat these days. The animals have accustomed to the fires, firecrackers and drums. They raid the field fearlessly.
More than 10,000 families, including those of tribes, live in these areas.
“Animals destroyed paddy nearing harvest on 40 cents of my paddy field within three weeks,” Balan, a marginal farmer at the Thonikadavu tribal hamlet at Chekadi, a forest enclosure inside the South Wayanad forest division, said.
Though the Forest Department had erected an 8-km solar fencing, from Vilangadu to Paanikkadavu, in 2012 by utilising NABARD funds, it is not functioning now owing to dearth of timely maintenance, said K.N. Ajayan, a marginal farmer at Chekadi.
‘‘We have around 200 acres of paddy field at Chekadi village, of which 50 acres of land has been kept fallow for the past one decade owing to increasing wildlife attacks,’’ Mr. Ajayan said.
Ubiquitous problem
Thousands of farmers who live beside the forests face a similar fate. Many a time the farmers would not approach the Forest Department for compensation of their crop loss, as the procedure for the purpose is very complicated and the compensation is meagre, the farmers said.
‘‘The increasing wildlife population and dearth of fodder owing to large-scale conversion of forests into monoculture plantations of teak and eucalyptus were leading to man-animal conflicts,’’ C.S. Dharmaraj, secretary, Our Own Nature, an eco forum in the district, said. The wild growth of invasive plants inside forest is also a cause, he said.
Though the government had earmarked ₹9 crore in its 2016-17 budget for constructing a 6-km rail fencing from Palvelichom to Koodalkadavu, the work is yet to be launched, he said.