Wildlife, a blessing and a curse to farmers

by Denny Banister

Ask any gardener – when the fruit and vegetables begin to ripen, wildlife will let them know as they come to celebrate the occasion. Most gardeners do not mind sharing a little of their bounty with wildlife, but sometimes they share more than they would like.

I always planted more tomatoes than I hoped to harvest due to the loss of fruit to wildlife. The same is true for cantaloupe and other melons. I only planted one zucchini, and could never convince wildlife to clear my garden of the excess my family could not consume or give away.

If the terrapins attacking my cantaloupe would have eaten a few of the melons, it would not have bothered me. That is not how they work, however. They would take a single bite out of one of the melons and mosey on. By the time they swallowed their cantaloupe, they would have made it to the next plant where they would take another bite.

What gardeners face in loss to wildlife is minuscule in comparison to what farmers and ranchers lose to wildlife in crops and livestock. According the National Agricultural Statistics Service, wildlife causes nearly $950 million in damage to crops and livestock annually.

With losses of such magnitude, it is no wonder farmers would like to see a reduction in the deer herds. Farmers are not anti-wildlife – quite the contrary. The vast majority of our wildlife live, breed and feed on farmland, and farmers enjoy seeing deer and wild turkey as much as any of us.

With the deer population growing rapidly, however, grain farmers are losing larger percentages of their crops – two-thirds of the wildlife damage occurs to farmers grain crops. Livestock and poultry farmers lose more than $175 million mostly to coyotes, and fruit, vegetable and nut producers lose almost $150 million to wildlife.

Farmers and ranchers know they are going to lose crops and livestock to insects and disease, to drought and floods, and to hail, wind and lightning – that goes with the territory. Add to that $950 million in damage to crops and livestock from wildlife – should that go with the territory too?

(Denny Banister, of Jefferson City, is the assistant director of public affairs for the Missouri Farm Bureau, the state’s largest farm organization.)