Want to try Fukuoka style farming in Korea - but what do about wild piggies?

Hellos,

I am very new to permaculture, have very little experience farming in general, but am very eager to try it out.

I have a momma in South Korea who has a few acres in the mountains. She told me that chemical based agriculture in the past had destroyed the soil's fertility over several decades. Within the last 7 years she had nurtured the soil where there are now lots of worms thriving in the soil, whereas before there were none. I am very interested in helping her out, especially after reading about Mr. Fukuoka's work (along with some information shared by Helen Atthowe about veganic permaculture that I ran across).

I plan on spending some time on her land around May and help out for several months and have been researching stuff and browsing this forum to get ready for that endeavor.

So for now, I have no idea how to deal with the following problem she shared with me. She let me know that there are wild piggies in the area and they like to raid her crops at night.

I am really interested in the "growies" aspect, and have no clue how to deal with the "critters" aspect. For now we just want to grow vegetables to sell and have not really considered selling natural bacon. Has anyone encountered problem like this before, or know some solutions to this sort of problem?

I liked Helen Atthowe's thoughts of nurturing a food chain where every organism has a place, but also kept in check by a food chain of predators. She mentioned how moles appeared on her farm once, but later snakes and coyotes appeared as well to take care of that. I'm not sure what I could help introduce to control wild pigs though, mountain lions come to mind but that seemed pretty risky. My mother let me know that some farmers in Korea uses electrified fences but is that a good solution?

Thank you in advance, and I look forward to researching other people's experiences and knowledge on this forum.


Best regards,

David

Are you able to own firearms in South korea?

Sam Barber wrote:Are you able to own firearms in South korea?

Hi Sam,

I didn't know the answer, however when I looked it up it seems one can own them after obtaining a license.

Has anyone ever tried the predator urine smelling products? I think I've seen coyote urine, or wolf urine, that could be purchased and applied to borders of farmland. I am not sure if they work though.

I suppose blasting the biggies with a gun would work, but it does seem a bit extreme for this one though, and will require much consideration.

Well it is a personal decision

Fences, havahart-type traps, crop selection (finding something they won't eat), landscaping (animals follow the path of least resistance), hunting yourself, or hiring someone to hunt, all come to mind.

If this were my problem. I would direct all efforts to attracting and killing pigs for sale. A good tiger torch should be employed to burn the hair off each victim so you don't pick up tics or other parasites. Nothing you can grow will equal the value of pork that can be attracted by a good trap crop. My neighbor has an area of less than 100 sq, ft. of alfalfa which is fenced until deer season. This small field produces 2 deer per season. That's the legal limit. If there is no limit on those pigs, it could really work out well.

Pigs are very sensitive to electric fence so this would work well. One wire about 1 foot, (30cm), of the ground would work. It could be left off while anyone is working in the garden to avoid people being zapped. Battery electric fence units are cheap to buy and run.

David,

I'm in Seoul so if you're reasonably close, I'd be happy to help out. My suggestion for the long term would be to utilize the electric fencing, but we could also try to hunt/trap the pigs for meat. Hit me up and maybe we can help your aunt out.