Shifting Cultivation : In Search of Alternatives
Contents: Foreword. Introduction. I. Shifting cultivation: status: 1. Shifting paradigm on shifting cultivation: revisiting challenges and options for transforming Lives, Landscapes and Livelihoods/Vincent T. Darlong. 2. Shifting cultivation: land degradation and an approach to remedial measures in North East India/M. Datta and N.P. Singh. 3. Scenario of Jhum cultivation among the tribals of Tripura/R.K. Acharyya. 4. Shifting hill cultivation among the Riang of Tripura/Gautam Kumar Bera. 5. Shifting cultivation among the Halam of Tripura/Manoshi Das. II. Shifting cultivation: rehabilitation: 6. Regrouped forest villages: a new model approach to manage shifting cultivators in Tripura/A.K. Gupta. 7. Rethinking of regrouping villages for rehabilitation of shifting cultivators in Tripura/Jayanta Choudhury. 8. Jhumia rehabilitation: a quest for viability/Jahar Deb Barma. III. Shifting cultivation: alternatives: 9. Forest rights act: implications of Jhumias of Tripura/Amitabha Sinha. 10. Sustainable development of Jhumias through micro watershed development project under WDPSCA in Tripura/Nibedita Das and Bijaya Bhattacharya. 11. Rubber cultivation for Jhumias in Tripura/K.K. Raghavan. 12. Bamboo--a key raw material for alternative livelihood for shifting cultivators (Jhumias) in Tripura/Md. Selim Reza.
"Shifting cultivation is regarded as a primordial stage in the evolution of agriculture and modern land husbandry practices marking a transitional stage between nomadic hunting and gathering and sedentary agriculture. The practice of shifting cultivation has evolved through the struggle of small human societies to supplement their hunting and food gathering in the forests by the then newly discovered techniques of raising food crops by planting.
In India, shifting cultivation is widely practised in the hill regions of the north eastern states of Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland and Tripura. The practice is also prevalent in isolated pockets of Orissa, Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Chhatisgarh and is known by different local names in different areas. It is called jhum in Northeast India, podu in Andhra Pradesh, bewar or daihya in Madhya Pradesh, and podu, dungar chasa, koman or bringa in Orissa. Shifting cultivation remains to be the primary means of livelihood of the native hill communities in these areas.
Owing to systems of community land holding, cooperative land allotment or special role and identity of women in shifting cultivation, it cannot be easily isolated from the socio-economic and cultural aspects of the people. Shifting cultivation continues to draw the serious attention of both policy makers and development practitioners the world over. About 10 million hectare of tribal land stretched across 16 states is estimated to be under shifting cultivation in India. based on recent satellite images it is estimated that 1.73 million hectares of land is affected by shifting cultivation in Northeast India (FSI, 2000). While an estimated 12% of tribal population in India still practice shifting cultivation, the number of families involved in shifting cultivation in Northeast India is estimated to be 4.5 lakh (MoEF, 1997)." (jacket)
