What kind of challenges are taken place in jhum cultivation? How do they impact the forests?
Answers
Explanation:
Shifting cultivation (slash and burn jhum) is widely practiced by farmers in the hill regions of the North-Eastern states of India. Though implemented in a sustainable way for generations, this system of subsistence agriculture is now facing many challenges and there is an urgent need to identify suitable alternatives.
Challenges to shifting cultivation include unseasonal and erratic rainfall, reduction in duration of fallow period due to pressure on land, reduction in yields due to decline in soil fertility, lack of interest among the younger generation in practicing it among others.
The government and scientific establishment has long considered jhum to be destructive to the environment due to the removal and subsequent burning of vegetative cover from the selected jhum area. Increased air pollution, soil erosion and landslides have been attributed to jhum. The main alternatives put forth by the establishment have been conversion of jhum area to settled agriculture through terrace construction or establishing plantations and orchards. The success of these alternatives has been limited since they are cost intensive and dependent on external inputs and technology beyond the reach of the hill farmers.
The SALT approach (Sloping Agriculture Land Technology) when suitably adapted to the local conditions has the potential to offer the hill tribes with an alternative method of agriculture, which while being climate smart, will also provide the farmers with a means of sustainable livelihoods.
A pilot SALT project has been initiated in village Aben of Manipur state during the 2017 monsoon season. Goatery, fishery, duckery and apiculture will be incorporated into the model for added benefit. The project will adopt the Farmer Field School approach to develop the model and scale up to at least five surrounding villages by 2020. Over the longer term, there is great potential to adapt the model wherever shifting cultivation is being practiced in the north-east hill zone.