Developing awareness and skills of the land users on measures of Jhum intensification & optimization in Mizoram, India
Résumé
Jhum as a farming practice is mostly found in the North East India and it is the way of life and deeply embedded in the tradition and culture of the local communities of the region. However in the recent past due to changes in the socio-economic condition and land use pattern, shortcomings like reduced jhum cycles, reduced fallow period, loss in soil fertility and poor crop yields have started to emerge in the jhum field of Mizoram thereby threatening degeneration of the state's rich natural resource and well being of the community directly depending on them.
The IKI- Biodiv project has helped in generating awareness and strengthened the capacity of the land users on measures of jhum optimization and intensification which will contribute to promoting biodiversity and ecosystem services while ensuring food and livelihood security of the farmers.
Classifications
Région
Ampleur de la mise en œuvre
Ecosystème
Thème
Défis
Objectifs de développement durable
Objectifs d’Aichi
Approches pour l’engagement des entreprises
Défis
- Jhumming or the rotational agro forestry is the main landuse practice and the major source of food security and livelihood for the rural communities of Mizoram for centuries. This practice is well adapted to this region creating cultural landscapes and has been found to preserve biodiversity and forest on a long term.
- In recent years, jhum has come under stress due to land use changes, shortening of jhum cycle, reduced fallow period, loss of soil fertility and reduced crop yield.Therefore there is an urgent need to align various ecosystem services with the rapid soicio economic transformation taking place in Mizoram.
- Therefore to popularize the practice of jhum optimization and intensification by bringing in measures for increasing cultivation period i.e. fallow management to restore soil fertility, recharge soil moisture and underground water, creation of secondary forest and other subsidiary income as well as enhancing microbial actvities and maintain ecosystem were undertaken.
Bénéficiaires
Village council members and farmers of Khawrihnim village in Mizoram were the main beneficiaries. Besides them a Self help group and government officials of forest department also benefitted from the programme.
Blocs Constitutifs
Comment les blocs constitutifs interagissent-ils entre eux dans la solution?
- The first building block helped to address the knowledge gap of the local communities and land users by generating awareness about the importance of biodiversity conservation and its linkages to their livelihood and food security.
- The second building block made them to realize that the measures of jhum optimization are just some kind of improvisation of the method which they were already practicing and by observing them being practiced by their counterpart in Nagaland helped them
- to improve their knowledge,
- to gain confidence
- and to trigger practicing them back in their village. - After enhancement of their capacity, the third building block can effectively address the challenge, as the local community depends upon the forest and its resources for their livelihood and the need to conserve it by adopting various innovative practices of good jhuming.
- Finally the solution will provide an oppurtunity to convince the government for mainstreaming jhum optimization measures and incorporate this in their policy.
Galerie interactive
Impacts
- Awareness on biodiversity conservation and ecosystem management was generated among the government official, community leaders and farmers.
- Interest among the farmers and community leaders to take up different jhum optimization measures in their jhum field was developed.
- The farmers started to conserve the forest tree seedlings and trees offshoots during weeding in their jhum field.
- The department of forest environment and wild life exhibited interest and was ready to asses the villagers with ready to plant tree saplings.
Histoire
In Khawrihnim village the farmers were practicing Jhum for generations and cultivation of secondary crops, mixed and intercropping of oilseeds, pulses, vegetables, spices and tubers along with rice as the main crop were in the practice in the jhum field.Though the farmers were aware about the benefits of long fallow cycle and regeneration of forest, they were skeptical about the idea of continuing in the same Jhum plot in the second year as they feared drastic reduction of crop yield due to loss of soil fertility. Further, the village had never thought about it, as they were comfortable with utilizing the Jhum land only for a year as they had enough land in their disposal and presently their Jhum cycle was 9-10 years.
The village council authority and the farmers were convinced after the workshop that little modification in their existing jhum system through jhum optimization measures would benefit them immensely through increase in household income while conserving biodiversty and improving ecosystem service of the land users.
Images
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