Caught between wildlife and livelihood

Shubhra Sotie

‘Deer and wild beasts would feast upon the young rice in the fields, leaving the farmers in despair. A compassionate Bodhisattva sought to protect both the crops and the animals.’ -Ruru Jataka, Ancient Buddhist Text

Crop raiding by wildlife is as old as agriculture itself. While this issue has always affected farmers’ livelihoods, shrinking forests and expansion of farmlands have intensified the conflict. Farmers, especially those near forested areas, suffer heavy financial losses — sometimes losing over 50 per cent of their crops. To mitigate losses, they use non-lethal deterrents like fencing and night guarding, but some also resort to electrocution and poisoning. Common species involved in crop raiding include primates, wild boar, nilgai, deer and elephants.

Currently, state governments, through forest departments, provide financial relief to farmers via ex gratia payments — a token amount paid for lost crops. Unfortunately, the payment system is riddled with bureaucratic delays and complex claim procedures.
A more structured relief, such as crop insurance, could offer farmers greater financial security and thereby reduce potential retaliatory actions against wildlife.

In addition to crop loss associated with wildlife activity, Indian farmers face multiple risks, including erratic rainfalls, hailstorms, cyclones, droughts, heatwaves, floods and cold waves. India has developed various mitigation tools, including credit and insurance schemes. Insurance, in particular, can serve as a major risk alleviation mechanism for farmers. However, since its inception in 1972, crop insurance in India has kept wildlife-related losses at arm’s length. 

In 2016, the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana (PMFBY) consolidated multiple crop insurance schemes under a single framework to address past inefficiencies. However, despite its ‘one nation, one scheme’ promise, PMFBY continued to exclude wildlife-related losses until recently, leaving affected farmers without adequate financial protection. Despite the extension of the scheme on a pilot basis, its implementation remains challenging.

PMFBY provides a comprehensive risk insurance package with lower premiums and extensive coverage. Under the scheme, farmers pay a subsidised premium — 2 per cent of the sum insured for Kharif crops, 1.5 per cent for Rabi crops and 5 per cent for commercial/horticultural crops — while the government bears the remaining premium burden. The scheme covers yield losses from non-preventable risks but excludes damage from wild animals, which is deemed preventable. 

However, labelling crop raiding by wildlife as preventable overlooks the severe mental and physical toll it takes on farmers, who work all day and stay up through the night to guard their fields. This constant vigilance exposes them to stress, anxiety and the threat of dangerous encounters, where defending their livelihood can result in injury or even death. Every year, over 600 people lose their lives due to human-elephant conflict in the country, and these incidents frequently prompt intentional or retaliatory harm to species prioritised for conservation.

A major hurdle in implementing PMFBY has been the difficulty in assessing wildlife-related losses. Unlike other non-preventable natural risks covered under the scheme such as cyclones, droughts and floods, crop raiding lacks set indicators. While risks like extreme weather can be evaluated using rainfall amount, soil moisture, satellite indices and hydrological parameters, wildlife-related losses have no reliable uniform indicators. Crop-raiding incidents are highly localised and indicators are not readily available to capture the impact. 

Similarly, substantial historic yield data is not available for crop losses caused by wild animals across most states in India. As a result, actuarial pricing is not extended for crop-raiding, which can potentially underestimate the actual damage endured by the farmers. To overcome the lack of indicators, PMFBY suggests that insurance claims for raiding or grazing by wild animals be substantiated with media reports or reports of the agriculture and/or forest and/or revenue department. Yet, these proxy indicators may not exist for small-holding farmers as their losses may not be recorded through any of these means. 

Even if these instances are recorded and corroborated by the Panchayati Raj or Gram Sabha as evidence of loss, insurance companies remain hesitant to provide coverage, citing crop raiding as a “moral hazard” at the time of assessment. In the insurance industry, a moral hazard refers to a situation where the insured may act less carefully because they do not bear the full cost of their actions. Even if designed to protect against exaggerated claims, such qualifiers hinder the accessibility of the scheme.

In December 2024, the Union Government announced that the scheme would transition to a form intended to cover losses due to wildlife. For such a scheme to be successful, it must be equitably employed, offering farmers financial protection against a broader range of risks. As the modalities for its extension are being formulated, one can only hope they overcome the shortcomings in the pilot scheme and emerge as a compassionate Bodhisattva.

(The writer is a specialist, Wildlife Research and Policy at Humane World for Animals India, formerly Humane Society International India) 

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are the author's own. They do not necessarily reflect the views of DH.