Monkey, wild boar menace keeps Telangana farmers dependent on paddy despite government’s crop diversification push

Despite the Telangana government's push for crop diversification amid deficient rainfall, farmers remain reluctant to abandon paddy, citing increasing damage from monkeys, wild boars, birds and peacocks. They have urged the government to address the wildlife menace before promoting alternative crops.

Medak: While the government has been actively campaigning to encourage the farmers to take up alternative crops avoiding paddy and other rain intensive crops as the State received deficient rainfall this season, the suggestion was not going well with the farmers.

Worried over the menace from monkeys, wild-boars and bird menace, farmers have refrained from cultivating maize, jowar, groundnut, and other coarse grains, fruit bearing orchards and vegetables at many places. Since the monkeys, wild boars and birds would not damage paddy much, the farmers had completely switched to the paddy cultivation over the years.
However, the farmers and the state government were facing the biggest challenge in the form of El Nino patteern this year, which resulted in deficit rains across the State. To counter the issue, the State government came up with a contingency plan after consulting the organisations such as International Crop Research Institute for Semi-arid Tropics (ICRISAT), Indian Council of Agriculture Research (ICAR), Professor Jayashankar Telangana Agriculture University (PJTAU).

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The agriculture department officials were actively educating the farmers to switch the crops. Even the Ministers and Collectors were also participating in such programmes. During one such programme organised at Chegunta mandal headquarters on Saturday, farmers raised the issue of monkey menace when the Labour Minister and District Incharge Minister G Vivekananda was talking to them on the need to switch to the crops listed out in the contingency plan.
It is not only an isolated incident, the agriculture officials were facing similar questions at grassroot level. As the monkey, and wild-boar population increased manifold, the farmers quit the fruit bearing crops, millets, groundnuts and many other crops over the years.

The farmers have urged the government to come up with a plan to control the monkey and wild-boar menace. At some isolated places where a few farmers cultivated crops such coarse millets, the birds were feeding on them, pushing the farmers further into losses. The farmers further complained that the peacocks population has also increased manifold in many districts in the states which was also posing a serious challenge alternative crops.