Harsha Raj Gatty
Team StoryInfinity for Daijiworld

Karkala, Oct 22: Tormented by the uninvited wild destroying his farmland, this 67-year-old farmer is taking help of mannequins. Aulin Serrao, a small-scale farmer, who claimed to have lost substantial crops owing to animal grazing earlier, tells Daijiworld that such instances have drastically reduced.

The farm located at Sankal Kariya village at Karkala in Udupi district is rich natural habitat with peacocks, monkeys, fouls and is serene for onlookers. But for local farmers like Aulin Serrao, man-animal conflict is a routine.

A small-scale farmer involved in the cultivation of coconut, ladies finger, arecanut, drumstick, pineapple, gherkins and other vegetables, Aulin said that the crop is barely sufficient for sustenance, let alone to profit from the harvest. Besides himself, Aulin said that he has to also look into the food and economic needs of his five member family. “In the midst of the limited yield, the loss of crop due to animal intervention is unbearable as it offsets whatever margin we earn through cultivating and tending the crops, making agriculture untenable," Aulin said.

Earlier, Serrao had even setup photos of tiger in the farmland to scare animals including monkeys, but it yielded little result.

It was a chance encounter with his friend who owns a dress shop at Kinnigoli in Dakshina Kannada that Aulin came to know that he was going to dispose of a few of his mannequins. “About a fortnight ago, the shop owner casually asked if I could use the mannequins as a scare for porcupines, monkeys, and other animals in the field. I thought it was a good idea,” Aulin said.

Having completed only till sixth grade, Serrao said that agriculture was the only occupation known to him. With over four heads of ancestors in his family who lived by the cultivation in the farmland, Aulin said that farming was a natural calling.

Earlier on a routine basis, the uninvited wildlife would visit Aulin’s farmland and leave with uprooted seeds, half-eaten crops and plundered farmland. Dressed with grass, torn shirts and hats of vague colour, the traditional decoys or scarecrows fail to impress these animals and birds, let alone scare them, Aulin said. “For years, animals have observed and are conditioned by the existence of such harmless imitations and they are used to it. So much so, that they are not scared of them anymore, at times one can even spot some birds resting on them. On the contrary it attracts the attention of animals and birds and it makes them easy for them to spot a farmland,” he said.

The life-size mannequin, barely distinguishable from a human is about the height of 5 feet 9 inches. The only defect with the grey coloured statue is it has a defective hand. “But it didn’t matter to me, since the owner did not charge me a penny for it. I quickly dressed it up and set it up in the field,” Aulin said. Since then, the 67-year old claims that non-domestic animals stayed away from his property.

“Not only non-domestic animals, even cows keep away from the fields,” Aulin said. The experiment has now become a major talk of the town with more farmers opting the similar route to protect their agricultural produce. A neighbouring farmer Stanley, facing similar issue has purchased a mannequin for Rs 5,000.

Aulin said that following local media coverage, he has received calls from other shop owners to take their mannequins. “If anybody gives me the mannequin, I will share it with other farmers who face similar problems,” he said.