Assessment of Crop Rading by Wild Animals in Ayetoro, Ogun State

Crop raiding is undoubtedly the most reported case of human-wildlife conflict. Crop raiding is not a new phenomenon. Since the pre-colonial era, elephants and other large mammals have been implicated in some parts of Africa to be responsible for food shortage, displacement of rural dwellers and preventing the cultivation of crops. Human wildlife conflicts have however gained more global attention in the past few decades among stakeholders. These conflicts now have far reaching implications on conservation efforts, livelihoods, food security and even national security. Strategies to resolve these conflicts should be site specific. We therefore assessed the crop raiding activities of wild animals in Ayetoro, Ogun state, Nigeria, with a view to providing the much needed information required for conflict resolution. The sampling technique deployed was focus group discussion. Farmers were drawn from farming communities to discuss issues relating to crop raiding by wild animals on their farms. Data elicited from the discussion were subjected to content analysis. Four themes emerged from the study; maize (Zea mays) and cassava (Manihot esculenta) were the most raided crops, the most frequently reported crop raiding wild animal was grasscutter (Thryonomys swinderianus), wild animals raided the farmers’ crops in both wet and dry season but was more in intense in the wet season while the method adopted by the farmers in preventing crop loss were guarding and regular weeding of their farms and surroundings. Crop damage mitigation measures should have a holistic approach in order to yield the desired results. There is an urgent need for government intervention in order to cushion the effect of the loss incurred by the farmers