When neighbors work together to trap wild pigs, something remarkable happens: the crops survive.
That's the finding from researchers at the University of Tennessee and the University of Arkansas who studied a federal program that pays landowners to cooperate in fighting feral hogs. Their research, published in an agricultural economics journal, shows the effort really works.
Wild pigs are a massive problem across the United States. The U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates that around 7 million feral hogs roam 35 states, causing between $2.5 billion and $3.4 billion in damage every year. At least $800 million of that comes from ruined crops. The animals also spread disease to livestock, tear up pastures, and harm natural habitats. The problem keeps growing because feral hogs can double their population in just four months.
The challenge is that pigs don't respect property lines. They roam across huge stretches of privately owned land. If one landowner traps hogs on their land, the animals just move to the neighbor's farm. That means no single person has enough incentive to solve the problem alone — a classic case where everyone waits for someone else to act.
In the 2018 Farm Bill, Congress decided to try something different. Lawmakers allocated $75 million to encourage private landowners across 10 Southern states to work together on hog eradication. The program funded trapping equipment, on-farm trapping efforts, and restoration of damaged land. It ran in selected counties in Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Texas starting in 2020.
Researchers compared what happened in counties where the program ran against counties where it didn't. They looked at federal crop insurance claims — a reliable way to measure real agricultural losses. In counties without the program, wildlife damage to corn averaged 70 acres per policy. In counties where the coordinated trapping effort was active, that number dropped to just 10 acres per policy. That's a 86 percent reduction in corn damage.
The program faced setbacks. It launched during the COVID-19 pandemic, which made community meetings and outreach difficult. Some landowners may have hesitated to commit, unsure whether the program would last.
Despite these challenges, the results were clear. Corn is the crop most commonly damaged by feral hogs, and it was the only one that showed a statistically significant improvement. Soybeans, wheat, cotton, and peanuts didn't show the same dramatic changes.
Congress seems convinced the approach works. In July 2025, lawmakers added another $105 million to keep the program running through 2029. A Farm Bill pending in the Senate would add another $150 million and extend the effort through 2031.
The researchers believe their findings may actually undercount the benefits. Some farmers have minor crop damage that doesn't warrant an insurance claim, so those losses never appear in the data. The study also didn't measure improvements to livestock health, wildlife habitats, or water quality — benefits that are harder to count but just as real.
What the research demonstrates is simple: when landowners join forces, they can turn the tide against an invasive species that seemed impossible to control.