Crop diversity and susceptibility of crop fields to elephant raids in
eastern Okavango Panhandle, northern Botswana
Abstract
Abstract 1. Elephants frequently raid farmers’ crops within their ranges
in Africa and Asia. This can have a large impact on agricultural
productivity and food security for farmers. 2. Previous studies have
examined susceptibility of crop fields to elephant raids using field
characteristics such as field size and proximity to water sources.
However, there are limited studies investigating how different crop
types, individually and in their combinations influence crop
susceptibility to elephant raiding. Also, spatio-temporal patterns in
elephant crop raids in agro-ecological landscapes have not been
extensively examined. 3. This study utilised data collected from crop
fields raided by elephants between 2008 and 2018. Data on crops grown,
the number of crop-raiding incidences for each crop, and elephant
raiding incidences were recorded for each field assessed. Incidence
risks (IR) and field risk value (RV) were computed using an adaptive
epidemiological approach. 4. The results showed that elephant crop
raiding incidents varied significantly amongst crop types, and over
space and time (P<0.0001). Cereal crops (millet: Eleusine
conaracana, maize: Zea mays) incurred a higher number of crop raiding
incidents compared with leguminous crops (cowpea: Vigna unguiculata;
groundnut: Arachis hypogea). Field RVs significantly varied depending on
which crop was present in the field. There was a significant negative
correlation between the number of crop types and the susceptibility of
the field to raiding (R2 = -0.680, P<0.0001). 5. Our results
suggest that the susceptibility of the fields to elephant raids could be
minimised by selecting crop types and combinations less susceptible to
elephant damage, thus enhancing food security for local subsistence
farmers. Keywords: crop raiding, crop species, incidence risks, field
risk value, food security, human-elephant conflict