Farmers' Consciousness of Maintenance of the Wire Netting Fence to Decrease Agricultural Damage by Wildlife

— A case study of K district in Aridagawa town, Wakayama prefecture —

Abstract

Wire netting fence which is lighter than the conventional fences has been introduced as a countermeasure of protection of agricultural damage by wildlife recently. There are two reasons to be introduced wire netting fence. The one is farmers' aging and labor shortage, the other is that farmers in the affected areas must put the fence in the ground by themselves when they introduce the damage protection public works. Considering farmers' aging and the depopulation in rural areas, it should be important for the farmers to talk with the maintenance of the fence in the long term perspective. This paper focuses on the farmers' consciousness of maintenance of the fence, and aims to uncover the critical points to maintain the fence effect.
The questionnaire to 68 farmers in K district of Aridagawa Town, Wakayama prefecture is analyzed from two points of view of difference in the farming communities in which the fence is introduced or not and in the respondents are leaders or not. As a result, it becomes clear that most of the respondents recognize the importance of daily maintenance works. To the contrary, the respondents who live in the community which don't introduce wire netting fence yet and who are not leaders don't understand the importance of the road for fence maintenance and rationalization of the maintenance work load. Besides, even the leaders don't recognize the importance of the future alternative ways of maintenance, which are the communities' cooperation and volunteer participation. These results show that the opportunity to learn the importance of the road for fence maintenance, the change in age structure and the alternatives to the present is necessary in the fence introduction process.