(MENAFN- Live Mint) Kerala Agriculture Minister P Prasad on Saturday claimed the growing menace of wild boars destroying crops could be tackled more effectively if people were allowed to consume their meat.

Speaking at a programme organised by the Paalamel village panchayat in this coastal district, Prasad said the existing central law, however, does not permit it.

"In my opinion, people should be allowed to eat the meat of wild boars killed in agricultural fields," he claimed, as per a PTI report.

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"If people have the permission to kill wild boars and eat their meat, the issue can be resolved much faster. But the current law does not allow this," he added, as per the publication.

The minister also pointed out that the wild boar is not an endangered species.

Prasad's remarks came days after the Kerala Assembly passed a bill to amend the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972, aimed at reducing the increasing incidents of human-animal conflict in the state.

Human-animal conflict a rising issue in Kerala

Human-animal conflict is one of the urgent issues the Kerala government needs to tackle. As per a report by the Kerala government,“Due to a combination of factors like abandoned farmlands, massive accumulation of garbage, behaviour of species involved (generalists) and their breeding success, conflict creating species like wild boar, bonnet macaque, peafowl, etc., which were hitherto confined to forest fringes, have migrated to these new habitats and started successfully breeding there.”

These new habitats are areas far-removed from forest fringes, the report also notes.

The wild boar menace in Kerala

A report by The Hindu in early 2025 claimed that 243 panchayats spanning 54 legislative Assembly constituencies in Kerala were seeing wild boars damaging crops and ruining livelihoods of farmers. These areas are spread across 11 districts.

A rubber-tapper the publication spoke to said,“People have practically stopped cultivating tapioca and pineapple, leaving large swathes of agricultural land untended and overgrown. Most have abandoned replanting rubber in their small holdings, given that wild boars have acquired a newfound taste for the saplings and bark."

The outlet spoke to the state's Forest Minister A K Saseendran, who laid the blame on the Centre by saying that this problem is aggravating because of the Centre's reluctance to label boars as vermin.

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“Empanelled shooters with licensed weapons are at a premium. Moreover, some panchayats seemed to delay the payments for killing boars ( ₹1000) and burying the carcasses ( ₹1,500). Despite the snags in the system, the government could eliminate an estimated 5,600 feral boars since 2022,” he had said.

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