Peasants and pests: How do we solve the problem?

From time to time, the local media, publishes statistics of the widespread use of illegal firearms and the implications thereof. While no sane person will seek to justify the use of automatic weapons, spirited away from the armed forces, in the commission of crimes of violence – armed robberies, murders and the like – one aspect of the problem that seems to be neglected, one suspects because those writing are totally unaware of the implications, is the use of unlicensed weapons for crop protection.

The writer happens to live in circumstances where a weapon for crop protection is an absolute necessity for survival. As a consequence of ill-conceived “land reforms,” much of what were plantations in the Central Province have been reduced to secondary jungle where monkeys, wild pigs, giant and flying squirrels and porcupines threaten to overtake the human population, and in some instances, already have. Had all of this land been allowed to go back to the birds of the air and the beasts of the field, all of this would not have been an issue. However, a substantial part of this land is still required for the production of crops of one description or another on which the residents depend for their survival. And we are not speaking here of vineyards for the production of champagne. We are talking about something much more mundane: plantains, manioc, sweet potatoes, jak, breadfruit and papaw and a few vegetables, perhaps. We are dealing here with subsistence agriculture for very poor peasants who have, literally, to live off the land on which they reside.

There is then the inevitable clash between man and beast and, if man does not have the tools to deal with the beasts, the contest becomes more than somewhat one-sided! There is not one kind of vegetable or fruit that is not subject to the depredations of these vermin. And I do not say this lightly or irresponsibly. And there is no way that the peasants who have to withstand their attacks can do so legally. In areas where there is electricity off the main grid, they often lay out very crude and lethal electric fences, and I am aware of instances where humans have fallen victim to the very high voltage carried on these wires, with fatal consequences. In another incident of which I am aware, a landowner’s dog got loose, gave chase to a sounder of pigs and several pigs and the dog ended up dead.

Another means of crop protection is the trap gun. Match heads are used as the explosive component in these contraptions, the projectiles are any objects such as pieces of nails and the whole mess is fired when some animal (or person) hits the trip wire. It is not a sophisticated contraption and the writer is aware of one (illegal) land settlement colony where at least one member of every family has fallen victim to a trap gun, fortunately, none fatally.

An interesting side bar to this state of affairs is the fact that police and excise personnel are averse to raiding kasippu stills in these areas because of the risk of being taken out by a trap gun, giving support, inadvertently we hope, to another rural scourge of the mid country of Sri Lanka!

There are few licensed guns in these areas, the red-tape and rigmarole involved in applying for such tools of crop protection being beyond belief. In addition, many residents of these lands are not able to afford the price of a single -barrel shotgun or do not qualify to own one.

Apropos of those in the latter category, one can include perfectly well-behaved citizens with an impeccable personal history but who are over 65 years of age. Yes, that’s right, senior citizens are absolutely excluded from ownership of even a basic twelve bore single-barrelled shotgun thanks to a requirement of the Ministry of Defence. This is yet another instance of the militarism of Sri Lankan governance overtaking common sense.

One assumes that this policy is driven by the fear, in some quarters at least, that a bunch of old fogies will form militias and take over the country. The human-elephant conflict is, justifiably, much publicized. The plight of Sri Lanka’s subsistence-agriculture-dependent rural poor who are engaged in a totally one-sided competition with crop-destroying pests that have, literally, invaded their turf is something that has not earned wide publicity, precisely for the reason that it is seen as a problem of the marginalized rural poor.

While it might not be as glamorous as a programme to save the whales or the Sri Lankan elephant, the plight of the peasantry facing the depredations of these pests is certainly deserving of the attention of any who profess concern for the well-being of the country’s rural poor.