At the meeting, he directed that the Special Committee be constituted immediately to assess and give solutions for crop damage caused by wild animals as indicated in the agriculture budget for 2023-24.
He requested that the Horticulture and Agriculture Department collect data year by year and district by district and submit it to the committee.
Anbu stated that the Forest Department should cross-check the data with the compensation granted for agricultural damage and investigate the reason for the increase in damage caused by wild animals before reporting to the government on the steps to be done.
He suggested that the committee visit states like Karnataka and Kerala and report on how they address crop loss. Irai Anbu informed the committee it had a month to present its report and recommendations to the government.
The study was carried out by teams made up of experts from the Department of Agriculture and the Department of Soil Conservation as well as various research centres at the district level.
Wild animals such as elephants, wild boar, deer etc. migrate to the agricultural fields in search for food and cause extensive damage to the crops, not only by eating them but also by walking on them. In some areas, crop damage is 50-60%, and in some cases it is 100%.
