Farmers in Madhya Pradesh’s Bundelkhand region say repeated crop raids by nilgai, wild boar and stray cattle are making agriculture unviable.
Many farmers now spend nights in makeshift huts, guarding their fields with torches to prevent animals from destroying crops.
Several report heavy losses in sesame, peas, chickpea and other crops, with some saying they now fear animals more than drought.
The crisis is pushing farmers to abandon cultivation, avoid sharecropping and migrate to cities in search of wage labour.
“Farming is no longer viable for me. I would rather move to Delhi and work as a labourer.” So says Chandan Singh Rajput, a farmer from Patha village in Chhatarpur district of Madhya Pradesh, who has suffered heavy crop losses over the past four years.
Rajput leases 20 bighas (just over three hectares) in neighbouring Jhinna village for Rs 85,000 a year, growing wheat, peas and sesame. To protect his crops, he lives in a makeshift hut in the field and keeps watch day and night.
“Every night, herds of nilgai (blue bulls) try to raid the fields. Even a brief lapse can mean the destruction of an entire crop,” he says, pointing to fresh hoof marks and dropping left by nilgai the previous night. “We stay awake with torches, ready to chase them away at the slightest movement. Even then, it is not enough”.
Last kharif season, he sowed sesame across all 20 bighas but harvested barely 400 kilogramme. In the following rabi season, his pea crop yielded only 1,000-1,200 kg; without animal damage, he estimates, the harvest would have been five times larger. He reckons the losses amounted to Rs 1.5 lakh, including Rs 55,000 on peas alone. Excess rain then ruined his sesame crop in 2025. “If I worked as a daily labourer, at least I could sleep at night.”
Across the arid Bundelkhand region of Madhya Pradesh, such frustrations among farmers run deep.
Makhanlal, another tenant farmer in Patha village who also spends nights guarding his fields, says losses have become routine. “The cycle of losses has particularly become acute in the past four years. The last time I made a profit was in 2021. Since then, I have lost between Rs 1.5 lakh and 2 lakh.”
Earlier, he says, drought was the main threat. In recent years, however, nilgai and wild boar have caused the greatest damage.
At Pehra, another village in Chhatarpur, Down To Earth meets Omnarayan Tiwari, a farmer setting up fences around his land. He also says farmers struggle to save half their crops despite constant vigilance. “Chasing away animals can be dangerous, as they sometimes turn aggressive and injure those trying to drive them off,” says Tiwari.
At nearby Parai village, Arimardan Singh Yadav says crop damage begins as soon as the agricultural cycle starts. Wild boars dig up the fields as soon as sowing is done. Once the crop begins to grow, cattle and nilgai move in; a herd of 400-500 cattle can devastate a field within hours.
Ravikant Pathak, district coordinator of the non-profit Vikas Samvad in Chhatarpur, says that nilgai which can jump high, often leap over solar-powered electric fences (barriers that give mild shock to animal or people when touched). He adds that his organisation is supporting 500 farmers across 12 villages for installing such fences. Installing such a system on a four-hectare field costs about Rs 20,000 out of which the organisation bears half the cost.
However, many farmers have already stopped farming, even growing lucrative crops such pigeon pea (arhar) and sorghum (jowar), for fear of animal damage. Babulal Pal, a farmer from Parai, estimates that cattle, wild boar and nilgai destroy up to 75 per cent of crops. Last year, he cultivated chickpea on 4 bighas but harvested less than half quintal (50 kg).
Pal owns about 50 bighas spread across several locations. Two or three family members remain in the fields throughout the day to protect crops. If they fall asleep, they risk finding an entire field destroyed. “Look at our condition,” he says. “Can anyone call us big farmers? We have enough land, but because of the animals we cannot harvest our crops. We struggle even for food.” He says the same is true of most farmers in the village.
According to Pal, around a quarter of the village’s farmers did not harvest their crops last year because so little remained. Animal damage has also made sharecropping unattractive. Migration, meanwhile, has surged. He estimates that members of nearly 80 per cent of households have left in search of work, leaving behind mainly the elderly.
Bhavanidin, Pal’s 80-year-old father, who also guards the fields, says he does not want the next generation to take up farming. For the past five years, the family has lived in a makeshift hut in the fields to protect crops from animals.
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.