Sowing Adaptation

Farmers in eastern Indian states are replacing paddy with alternative crops to prevent elephant attacks. Can this experiment be replicated? DEEPANWITA NIYOGI palamu, east Singhbhum SAMARJIT SAHU angul

- Deepanwita Niyogi, Samarjit Sahu

FOR thousands of India’s farmers this is the time to live in fear. If drought has not already damaged their crops, they dread an unpredictable assault: elephant raids. In and around India’s 101 elephant corridors, the animals damage crops spread over 1 million hectares of land. In Konkadasa, a picturesque village in Dalma Wildlife Sanctuary, Jharkhand, elephant raids are common Pointing to her tiny plot of land, Phoolmani Singh says elephants destroy the maize and paddy crops. Phoolmani’s story is no different from other farmers, who are at the mercy of hungry elephants.

The Union Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change points out that in the past three years, 1,224 people have died across 15 states due to elephant attacks. In these intense human-elephant conflicts, around 400 people die and 100 elephants are killed in retaliation every year, says R K Srivastava, director, Project Elephant.

Changing cropping patterns

In a few corridors, farmers are waging a war against elephant raids in a peaceful way. In a bid to protect crops from regular raids, some farmers have given up traditional paddy and vegetable cultivation. Take for instance, Kumud Chandra Pradhan, a farmer from Odisha, who grows lemon. A resident of Bimripal—a buffer village in Satkosia Gorge Sanctuary in Angul district—he is a contented man. “More than two decades ago, I started growing lemon to increase my income. But I did not know it would act as an elephant-repellant crop. It has benefitted me, as over the years I have noticed that elephants hardly enter my fields,” says Pradhan. He has over 1,100 lemon trees on 2.8 hectares (ha) and his annual income is about ₹25 lakh.