Elephants and crop raiding in TransMara

Because they are big, are they bad?

Elephants cause significantly less damage overall to agricultural crops then other animals such as rats or insects. However, their actions seem to cause the biggest noise.

Indeed, one report mentioned how women in Central Africa complain only of damage to their field crops by bushpigs and baboons, while men always complain about the elephants. In the TransMara region were this project is taking place, porcupines and wild pigs are perhaps greater pests when it comes to growing crops.

Elephants are minor pests
Elephants are, strange as it may seem, a very minor pest. The problem lies in the fact their actions are usually focused on one field at a time, and therefore the effects are catastrophic for that individual farmer's family.

The degree of this impact, plus the fact that elephants are often seen as being protected by governments and outside agencies, makes local people resent the intrusions and the elephants even more.

Migrants to TransMara exacerbate the issue
In the TransMara the situation is worsened by the arrival of many non-Masaais from the neighbouring districts.

They have come to take advantage of the open spaces and the fertile soils. For many of these new arrivals, their old home is a crowded place where the possibility of farming and earning an income is dwindling as the regional population increases.

So they arrive in the TransMara looking for land to farm. To make some money and then to leave again. But the only the spare land is usually next to forests or in the path of an elephant highway.

Communal ownership
One way round the problem of individual farmers suffering single catastrophic events, is if people returned to communal farming - where an entire village bands together to plant crops and share the harvest at the end.

They call this "collective risk management" and it is in this way, that no single farmer would ever take the full brunt of an elephant raid, as the damage and loss can be absorbed across the community.

Even if communal planting is not possible, farmers are being urged by people like Noah across Africa to plant their crops closer together, and then employ a communal guarding rota.