Farmers in Uttar Pradesh’s Bundelkhand say gaushalas have reduced some crop damage from abandoned cattle, but have not solved the wider problem.
Nilgai and wild boar continue to raid fields, damaging wheat, chickpea, peas and other crops despite fencing and constant vigilance.
Poorly managed cattle shelters, limited capacity and alleged irregularities mean stray cattle still return to fields in several villages.
Solar fencing subsidies have helped some farmers, but many say the protection is costly, incomplete and less effective against wild boar.
In Banda district of Uttar Pradesh, almost every village has a gaushala (cattle shelter) for abandoned cattle. Farmers say that has helped reduce crop damage, but only to some extent. There is still no solution for other marauding animals, especially nilgai (blue bull) and wild boars.
Santosh Yadav, a landless farmer from Khaptihakala village in Banda, says he no longer grows peas because of wild boar. He cultivates 16 bighas (1 bigha equals 0.17 hectare) on a sharecropping arrangement. Unable to afford iron barbed-wire fencing, he relies on thorn barriers. But that does not protect his wheat crop.
As soon as seedlings emerge, nilgai begin grazing on them. Over the past few years, he says, animal damage has cut average wheat yields by half, from the usual 10-12 quintals (1 quintal equals 100 kg).
Kallu, a farmer from Alona village in Banda, says his family owns about 90 bighas, but 30 bighas remain uncultivated as they lack the capacity to guard those fields. Several other farmers in the village have similarly left fields fallow. Kallu says that although Alona has a gaushala, it is poorly managed. The village has at least 1,000 stray animals, but the gaushala houses only about 90.
Besides, farmers allege, the system is beset by inefficiency and alleged corruption. Deonarayan Singh from Banda, who works as an assistant professor in Varanasi, alleges serious irregularities in gaushala management, and many have become hubs of corruption.
A gram panchayat official from Mahoba district, speaking on condition of anonymity, tells Down To Earth that incidents of cattle dying of hunger in gaushalas are common, even though the state government allocates Rs 1,500 per animal per month for upkeep; the current budget stands at Rs 1,200 crore for gaushalas. The official alleges inflated cattle numbers are often shown to demand more funds from the government, which are then misappropriated by village heads and secretaries. In some gaushalas, fodder is so scarce that cattle are released at night to fend for themselves, which then raid nearby farms.
Shiv Kumar, a resident of Alona, who guards fields in nearby Sandi village to keep stray animals off fields, estimates that shifting all stray cattle into gaushalas could reduce crop losses by up to half. However, he adds, keeping nilgai and wild boar off fields is a much difficult task.
Pointing to his field, Kumar says, on the night of October 26, wild boar destroyed nearly half of the chickpea crop on his 5.5 bigha field. He keeps firecrackers in a hut built in the field to scare animals away, though, he admits, they no longer have much effect. According to Kumar, farmers who cannot guard their fields after sowing hesitate even to harvest. Losses are often so severe that the costs of recovery outweigh the returns.
Like in Madhya Pradesh, farmers across the arid Bundelkhand region of Uttar Pradesh are investing heavily to protect crops from raiding animals. Options range from barbed-wire fencing, which costs around Rs 5,000 per quintal of wire, to solar-powered electric fencing that costs roughly Rs 6,000 per bigha.
In 2024, the Uttar Pradesh government approved the “Bundelkhand Integrated Agricultural Development (Solar Fencing) Scheme 2024-25”, under which farmers receive an 80 per cent subsidy on solar fencing. In a letter dated October 18, 2024, the state’s special secretary acknowledged that pulses and oilseed crops have suffered heavy losses from wild animals and stray cattle in recent years.
It noted that in many parts of Bundelkhand, traditional crops are either no longer being sown or are becoming economically unviable because of animal damage. More than 1 million hectares—about 15 per cent of Bundelkhand’s geographical area in Uttar Pradesh—are severely affected by wild animals and stray cattle. As forest cover shrinks, wild animals struggle to find sufficient food and fodder, which prompts them to raid agricultural crops, stated the document.
The solar fencing scheme has been implemented in 47 development blocks across seven districts of Bundelkhand—Jhansi, Lalitpur, Jalaun, Chitrakoot, Banda, Mahoba, and Hamirpur. It is designed farmer groups and requires a minimum cluster of 10 hectares. Dharamraj from Lama village in Banda, who benefited from the scheme through a group of five farmers, says solar fencing is effective against stray cattle but less so against wild boar, which can easily crawl beneath the wires.
This article is part of the series Conflict in the Backyard. A version of it was published in the cover story, Conflict in the Backyard, in the May 16-31, 2026 print issue of Down To Earth.