Epsilon Archive for Student Projects

Abstract

Problems with wild boars are increasing in Sweden and some people argue that the wild boar population must decrease. This is mostly the opinion by farmers, while the hunters want more wild boars in Sweden. Today the population is the strongest in the south of Sweden and in the eastern parts of the country. However the population is growing stronger in other parts of Sweden as well. The population origins from these areas where they escaped from pens around 1970. There are no calculations on how many wild boars there are in Sweden today, but it is defiantly more than 100 000.

The wild boars are mostly active during the night and seek their food during this period as well. Therefore it may be difficult to protect the crops from wild boar damage. The damage may occur during the whole year but are most common during the summer months. The damage can be extensive if a whole pack of wild boars enter the field and start eating and rooting. Basically all crops are subject to wild boar damage, but they do prefer for example wheat, corn and potatoes more than others. If none of these crops are grown than there is a risk that the wild boars damage other crops.

In this study five farms are used for estimating of the value of the damages. The farms are located in different parts of Sweden. The farmers were interviewed and they described how big the damages are, what crops they grow and so on. The farms have different production and therefore different crops are grown. The milk producers might get problems if soil gets into the silage which is fed to the cows. That might cause the bacterial content to be too high, and therefore useless. The grain producers don´t have the same problem, instead their problem is that the most profitable crop are the same as the crops wild boars like the most. If wild boars damage a field with for example wheat, then the losses might become very high.

The damage differs between none up till 20 percent of the total area farmed. The level of damage depends on what crop is grown on the farm and how the farmers protect themselves. On one farm electric fences are used with a good result, while one other said that it has no effect. Instead he argues that the only method that works is hunting, and that keeps the wild boars away from the field for a few weeks. All the farms do not own all of the land that they use and therefore they do not have the right to hunt.

In order to calculate the value of the damages on the farms, calculations of the economic result net of labour cost and management plans were constructed in the management plan program Agriwise. A comparison between three different situations on the farm was made. The first situation is with the current crop distribution and with wild boar damage, the second is with the current crop distribution but without wild boar damage and the last situation is without any adaptation to wild boars. The calculation show a loss on the farms that varies from 40 000 SEK till 519 000 SEK as a comparison between situation one and two, this equals a loss of 180 SEK till 962 SEK/ha. A comparison between situation one and three reveals a loss from 30 000 SEK/ha till 989 000 SEK/ha which equals 609 SEK/ha till 1 832 SEK/ha.