Risks to crop yields

Damage by wildlife is not the only yield-limiting factor a crop farmer has to cope with; many other factors play a role. Not exhaustively, these include influences such as weather, fire, soil quality, water, access to land, crop diseases, illnesses and fungi, pests such as insects and weeds, costs of and access to labour and equipment such as pesticides and fertilisers, operational procedures and planting strategies, and human thieves (Tweheyo et al. 2005; Webber 2006;

Linkie et al. 2007; Priston 2008; Arlet & Molleman 2010; Bal et al. 2011; Nyirenda et al. 2011).

Farmers were asked to freely talk about all the problems that limit their crop yields, without each bubble are provided in the text; sub-themes guide the subject-flow of the analysis.

77 yields (a rank of one representing the biggest problem). Table 4.1 displays the limitations on crop yields that farmers (n = 13 ⁵) feel they experience on their farms. Overall ranks were calculated from all interviews. This was achieved using the equation below. A score was calculated by multiplying the ranks given by the number of times a crop yield problem receives this rank, and summing these multiplications. When a problem is not ranked at all by one or more farmers, a rank of six was assigned (the rank following the lowest rank that any problem received – five), which was multiplied by the number of times the problem was not ranked and included in the sum. The score was then converted to a rank, with the lowest score receiving the highest rank (one).

∑ (r x n) + ((L+1) x z) = SCORE LOWEST SCORE = HIGHEST RANK (1) r = rank, n = number of times assigned each rank

z = number of times not assigned a rank, L = lowest rank in data set (in this case 5)

Table 4.4: The number of times each rank (from 1 to 5) was assigned by 13 crop farmers to each problem. An overall rank is calculated to determine which problems are perceived as most significant.

Crop Yield Problems Number of times assigned each rank Overall Rank

Crop raiding is perceived to be the biggest problem within the study area. Although less than half the farmers ranked wildlife raiding as the most significant problem affecting their yields, it is the only limiting factor that every farmer interviewed acknowledged and was labelled the top issue more times than any of the other problems mentioned. That farmers perceive wildlife raiding as their greatest concern is consistent with a number of other studies within the crop raiding literature (Wang et al. 2006; Webber 2006; Linkie et al. 2007; Marchal & Hill 2009; Fairet 2012).

5 Three farmers were unable to give answers on this question.

78 Wildlife is closely followed by weather and damage caused by insects in farmers’ perceptions of crop limiting problems. Interestingly, insects are not perceived as ‘crop raiders’ but instead are listed separately. This seems to be the general trend both among farmers (Tweheyo et al. 2005;

Webber 2006) and within the literature. While biologists and ecologists take an ecosystem approach on the matter – that is, insects are wildlife – this concept is not followed among pest and problem animal management professionals: a number of written works on ‘pest management’ discuss only invertebrate wildlife (Altieri & Nicholls 2004; Horne & Page 2008), while works written on ‘wildlife crop raiding’ tend to discuss only vertebrate raiders – either not mentioning invertebrate life at all or categorising it as a separate issue from ‘crop raiding’

(Tweheyo et al. 2005; Wang et al. 2006; Webber 2006; Marchal & Hill 2009). However, despite following these categorisations and using the discourse of vertebrate ‘crop raiders’, vertebrates are often later labelled as pests themselves (Webber 2006; Priston 2008), suggesting there is a pestilence hierarchy when describing animal crop damagers.

Weather and insects have been ranked above vertebrate raiding as crop limiters in other farming communities (Tweheyo et al. 2005; Priston 2008) and while recognised as important sources of crop loss in these areas, other farmers make no mention of these concerns (Rao et al. 2002;

Marchal & Hill 2009). Once again perceptions of control may be influencing these attitudes. The weather is impossible to control and is acknowledged by many farmers that ‘you must just accept it’.

Frost is a big problem, but with nature you can do nothing. (F07) On the other hand, with current technology and the availability of many kinds of pesticides, insect pests are regarded by farmers as being controllable. This is also true of plant diseases and fungi.

You pick up a worm, you start spraying so you prevent that. (F05) I can control the insects, once I see one I can spray my crops and they will be away for a

week, so I can control that. (F06)

You can surely kill it by means of spraying pesticides or something like that. (F09) Every farmer has got diseases, but that we can spray and do something about so they are

the ones we can keep out. (F08)

There’s stuff that we can do about the insects, but against the nature [weather], I mean that’s in the hands of the Lord. You must just accept it. (F02)

79 From a farmer’s perspective, there is no point in worrying about what cannot be controlled (the weather), and certainly no point in worrying about something you already have control over (many species of insects). Wildlife crop raiding on the other hand falls ambiguously between the realms of something that can and cannot be controlled. The expectation seems to be that crop raiding is not a ‘normal’ problem for the farmer, and should be dealt with. However, the reality is that it is especially difficult to deal with, with very little evidence that it has been successfully controlled anywhere in the world. The frustration over believing wildlife raiding should be controlled but not being able to do so probably keeps it at the forefront of farmers’ minds.

Animals that are particularly hard to control are also perceived most negatively, as is discussed in the next section.

Indeed, every farmer mentions crop raiding as an issue, while weather and insects – which certainly affect all farmers in the study area – were not mentioned by everyone interviewed. Of the eleven farmers who state both crop raiding and either weather or insects to be yield limiters, eight actually rank weather and/or insects above crop raiding in terms of how much they limit yields. This suggests that weather and insects play a bigger role in limiting yields, but farmers are more frustrated and unsatisfied with the issue of crop raiding – although raiding does not destroy as much crop as weather or insects, farmers are more concerned about wildlife than anything else. Alternatively, this could be due to the farmers’ knowledge that the focus of the study is wildlife crop raiding.