Where people endure sleepless night to protect crops from animals

 Krishna Prasad Jaisi of Bhairabi rural municipality-5 in Dailekh spends the whole night in his farm to chase away animals that arrive to destroy maize crops.

 Jaisi is not the alone who has been undergoing sleepless nights for days to keep crops safe from animals specially wild boars and monkeys. As they said, the challenges have escalated with the expansion encroaching upon the settlement.

Farmers have shared that these animals have already wreaked havoc on their maize crops, which they depend on for subsistence for six months of the year. But this is not just the case of Bhairabi rural municipality, it is the common phenomenon in many other parts of the district.

Agriculture Development Office, Dailekh has said 11 local levels in the district experience the menace by wild boars and monkeys. They have caused significant harms to crops, including maize. Office Chief Dashrath Pandey said maize crops cover 21,175 hectares of land at 90 wards of all local levels in the district. Recently, attacks on crops by wild animals have been intense, according to him.

As the corn crops season goes on, farmers continue to bear the losses due to damage caused from wild boars and monkeys and the Office is not in position of compensating them adequately.

"The official data about the losses caused animals is missing in the Office. The Office has not collected it while it is reported that the local governments have it. We are in the position of just providing seeds being based on the amount of losses to farmers. Normally the office provides grants to farmers, not the compensation," he said.

Bhairabi rural municipality agriculture section chief Prakash Bhatarai said animals have destroyed crops on five to seven ropani of land at one ward. "The local government intensifies the loss collections."

However, a policy to compensate farmers for the losses has not yet been formulated by the local government. Efforts from the three-tier government are essential to address the situation, it is stressed. ---