For a farmer, planting rice or sugarcane requires months of labor spent in one place. If elephants invade and damage the harvest, it can lead to the loss of annual income. However, for an elephant moving through the Terai, the same field looks different: rice, corn, and sugarcane are food and provide a lot of energy over a relatively small area.
The conflict between farmers' needs and elephants' dietary preferences poses a complex question: how to protect people's livelihoods in a landscape that elephants continue to use? One solution is fences, but in the Terai reserve of elephants in Uttar Pradesh, farmers and wildlife specialists are trying a different approach—they are studying what grows inside the field.
Turmeric is drawing attention because elephants show less interest in it compared to rice, corn, or sugarcane. Farmers are encouraged to grow it near more vulnerable crops or instead of them. This idea is only viable if it is also profitable for the farmer: the turmeric must grow well, cost less to cultivate, and have a market willing to pay enough to justify such a transition.
Why are elephants choosing farms over forests?
The Terai Elephant Reserve was officially established in December 2022 and covers an area of over 3,000 square kilometers in the Dudhwa-Pilibhit landscape. It includes forest areas connected to Dudhwa, Pilibhit, Katarniaghat, and Kishanpur. According to government sources, the elephant population in Uttar Pradesh is about 232 individuals. The reserve borders Nepal, and elephants cross the international border, but their route does not pass through one continuous stretch of forest; farms are also part of this landscape.
To an elephant, many of the cultivated crops are familiar as food. Dr. Aritra Khetri, National Elephant Conservation Head at WWF-India, explains: 'Sugarcane is a type of grass. Rice, wheat, and corn are also grasses. So, from an elephant's perspective, all of this is food.'
Cultivated crops have an additional advantage: they concentrate a significant amount of energy in one place. Khetri notes: 'From a nutritional standpoint, these crops have been selectively bred by humans for millennia to maximize carbohydrates, meaning they are a rich source of energy.'
Obtaining the same amount of energy in the forest requires much more time. As he explains, 'to get the same amount of energy, elephants would have to feed for 12–14 hours a day in the forest, eating bits of grass and trees. They can get the same energy in a couple of hours by eating rice, sugarcane, or corn.'
From an elephant's perspective, a cultivated field can be hard to ignore. According to Khetri, 'from an energy standpoint, it makes more sense for elephants to eat crops. But agricultural land also has its costs.'
These costs include people, roads, electricity infrastructure, and other dangers. An easy food source can also lead to elephants being in situations dangerous for both animals and nearby human residents. The problem has become more acute due to changes in elephant migration routes in this part of the Terai.
When seasonal visitors began staying year-round
According to Khetri, elephants were previously only seasonal visitors to this landscape. This pattern began to change in 1991. He reports: '1991 was the first year elephants were present year-round in Dudhwa. There were about 45.'
Over time, elephants started spending longer periods on the Indian side and expanding their range. Khetri notes: 'In the living memory of the people in this landscape, elephants are a rather recent phenomenon, unlike tigers and leopards, which have always been here.'
This matters for local farmers. The presence of elephants most of the year means that animals and agricultural fields encounter each other more often. WWF-India has studied crop loss related to elephants alongside other issues faced by farmers in the Terai Elephant Reserve. The Katarniaghat Wildlife Sanctuary turned out to be a particular hotspot where elephants are present almost every year.
The agricultural calendar adds another layer to the problem. Some farmers grow sugarcane year-round, while others grow two harvests, such as wheat followed by corn, or wheat and rice. Since one crop is harvested, another may be growing. Therefore, for elephants moving through this area, food can be available in different seasons. It was while studying these patterns that one of the existing crops began to stand out.
What was different about the turmeric?
Some farmers in Katarniaghat were already growing turmeric. Elephants apparently were not drawn to it as much as they were to rice, corn, or sugarcane. For farmers facing repeated crop damage, this difference presented an interesting opportunity. Khetri says: 'So, our hypothesis was: what if we could increase the income from turmeric by introducing better agronomic practices and more climate-resilient, high-yielding varieties?'
Farmers do not have to completely abandon food crops. If turmeric can generate enough money, its income can help offset losses caused by crop damage from elephants. He explains: 'The increased income these farmers receive from turmeric will help compensate for the inevitable losses they incur from food crops.'
The program started with about 10 progressive farmers. Then the WWF-India agriculture team worked with approximately 70 farmers to improve turmeric cultivation methods. The focus was on practical aspects: increasing yield, reducing water consumption, and decreasing resource costs. Khetri states: 'This was our initial intervention over the last two years: implementing best agronomic practices for turmeric to achieve higher yields.'
According to WWF-India, about 100 farmers have since been trained in improved turmeric cultivation, and the organization reports that yield has increased by 85% in one year.
A good crop is useless if nobody buys it
A turmeric field that elephants avoid is only useful if the farmer can earn a reasonable income from it. If production increases without reliable buyers, farmers face another problem. Therefore, the work began shifting from cultivation to what happens after the turmeric leaves the field.
Khetri states: 'The harvest has to go somewhere. So, we are currently building a value chain through farmer producer organizations that will aggregate farmers' produce and sell the turmeric to an intermediary.'
Farmer producer organizations can combine the produce of several farmers and link them with larger buyers. One buyer is being developed around organic production. Farmers will need to follow organic practices for several years before their turmeric can receive organic certification and command a premium price. Another buyer is expected to collaborate with the farmer producer organizations on processing and packaging.
These steps are important because the farmer's earnings also depend on what happens after the harvest. Drying, processing, and packaging affect the value the person who grew the crop ultimately receives. According to WWF-India, the Forest Department has allocated funds to create a processing and drying complex for turmeric in the region. The success of crop diversification will ultimately depend on this entire chain.
This raises another question often faced by farmers living near elephants: why bother changing crops if a fence could simply keep the animals out?
So why not just put up fences?
Fencing can help in certain places, especially where dense human settlement meets wildlife territory and there is a clear boundary requiring protection. However, Khetri is concerned about what happens when fences are installed within a broader landscape of forests and farms that elephants are already moving through. He believes: 'I think the use of fences is abused in India.'
He continues: 'If you put up fences in a mosaic of forests and farms, you restrict the movement of wild animals and redirect it elsewhere.' The effect can be easily missed when considering one farm. An elephant stopped by one fence will still have to find another way. Khetri warns: 'If you put a fence around your farm located along a corridor or on flat ground, you can put your neighbor's farm at risk from these elephants. Thus, there are side effects.'
Protecting one area can therefore shift the problem to another. This is why the work in Katarniaghat goes beyond turmeric fields. If elephants continue to move through this landscape, people also need ways to know when they are nearby and react before the encounter becomes dangerous.
An early warning can make a difference
The program supported 150 'Gadhi Mitra' (elephant friends) volunteers working in 20 teams. About 1600 community members and other stakeholders were also trained in human-elephant conflict management. Technology became part of this response. AI-enabled cameras generated over 650 automated alerts about elephant presence for communities and Forest Department response teams.
Alerts cannot stop an elephant's movement, but advance warning gives people and response teams more time to react when an elephant is nearby. Alongside this community response, ecological monitoring helps teams better understand the animals and the landscape. Over 50 wild Asian elephants have been individually identified and profiled. Vegetation surveys across 220 sites have also recorded hundreds of plant species and over 18,000 data points. Each of these elements addresses a different part of the same problem: what elephants eat, where they move, when they approach farms, and what can reduce losses when humans and animals share the same landscape. The answers will not remain static. Khetri notes: 'These are very dynamic systems, and what works today may not work tomorrow. What works in one place may not work in another.'
This uncertainty is also why turmeric is being tested as part of a broader approach.
How much can one crop change?
There are encouraging signs from Katarniaghat. According to WWF-India, from 2021 to 2025, the area of crops damaged by elephants decreased by 86%, and the number of crop damage incidents dropped by 47% over the same period. These figures are accompanied by work on turmeric, early warning systems, community response, and ecological monitoring. No single intervention can claim to solve a conflict shaped by animal movement, farmer choices, rainfall amounts, and changing habitat conditions.
However, for the farmer standing in the field, the question remains much simpler: can this land continue to generate income without losing too much harvest to elephants? Turmeric offers one such possibility. If farmers can cultivate it productively, find reliable buyers, and earn sufficient income from it, the crop that elephants mostly avoid can make farming in this landscape less vulnerable. Meanwhile, elephants will continue to move. The experiment in the Terai stems from this reality and asks what can change around it. Sometimes this change can start with something as ordinary as the decision of what to plant.