Monkey Menace Forces Farmers to Abandon Land in Bhojpur, Nepal

Bhojpur. The trend of arable land remaining fallow is increasing every year in Bhojpur due to the trouble caused by monkeys. Farmers are being forced to abandon cultivation as they are unable to protect their crops from monkeys, while some families have chosen migration in search of alternative employment and safer living conditions. Rural settlements are gradually becoming deserted as the trouble from monkeys does not subside.

According to local farmers, monkeys arrive in groups and target crops that are nearly ripe. Even when they are scared away by shouting and noise around the fields, they return after some time, making control even more difficult. Some have created effigies to scare them away. Attempts to guard the fields in shifts by building sheds on the field bunds have not provided a long-term solution.

The monkey problem is particularly severe in Ramprasadrai Rural Municipality-5 (formerly Wards No. 8 and 90) under the Maneybhanjyang area. According to local Jagat Bahadur Tamang, about 98 percent of the residents in this area have migrated, leaving the village almost empty.

“Earlier, there was hustle and bustle in the fields, now the doors of the houses are closed, and weeds are growing in the courtyards,” he said. Most houses in settlements like Archale, Vorleni, Damai Chhap, Guranshe Ranagaun, Thakle, and Mohoriyal are now dilapidated and empty. Fields that once looked lush green have been left uncultivated.

The edges of the fields and slopes are beginning to be covered with bushes, and in some places, the fields are turning into forests. The non-utilization of productive land is directly affecting the local economy.

According to farmers, monkeys destroy cereal crops such as maize, millet, buckwheat, wheat, potatoes, and vegetables. “Monkeys destroy the planted crops in an instant,” Tamang complained, “We cannot sit guarding the fields all day. Many have stopped farming because they cannot save the crops they worked hard to plant. Some have even had to leave the village.”

Farmers complain that the monkey problem is equally serious in other local levels of the district. Rural families whose main source of income is agriculture are suffering economically. As the younger generation migrates for employment, the responsibility for the fields falls upon the remaining elderly citizens and women, but they too are discouraged due to the monkey terror.

According to local stakeholders, the problem is more acute in settlements near forest areas. As human settlements decrease, monkeys become concentrated in the remaining settlements. Farmers state that if the problem is not solved in the long term, the danger of villages emptying out and arable land becoming completely fallow is increasing.

Locals suggest the need for effective policy formulation, scientific management, collective crop protection systems, compensation mechanisms, and the development of alternative farming technologies to control monkeys. Furthermore, farmers demand that concrete programs be operated in coordination between the local level and the concerned bodies.