Wildlife and Nature Conservation - Centre for Ecological Sciences

Agriculture 1983. While in some reports, jhum cultivation has been termed as apernicious practice, not only in terms of destroying forest wealth, but also acceleratingsoil erosion, in other reports instead of condemning it as an evil practice, there have beensuggestions to regulate the shifting cultivation on scientific lines, so as to limit itsdisadvantages and to promote fertility of the soil. However, all the reports have indicatedgradual phasing out of the shifting cultivation by permanent agricultural practices.In early parts of this century, the jhum cycle used to be more than 30 years, but becauseof fall in productivity of the land and increase in human population, the cycle has nowcome down to three to six years generally, even though in some of the States in localizedareas the cycle up to 15 to 20 years are still seen. It is this general decline of the shiftingcultivation cycle that has become a threat to the ecology soil stability, fertility andbiodiversity of this region and has become a concern for the States of this region. Withthe shortening of the jhum cycle, the land does not have time to recover, even bamboo,which is the first succession of forest crop after the abandonment of the cyclic Jhumcultivation does not have adequate time to grow back.The North-Eastern Council (NEC) with the mandate to help balanced development of theNorth-East, started pilot projects in these States during the 5th Plan period for thesettlement of Jhum families to permanent agriculture on developed lands. The pilotprojects started in 1974-75 and were normalized in 1978-79. The average investment perfamily for weaning over shifting cultivation to settled cultivation was about Rs.5,000/- tostart with, which increased to Rs. 20,000/- per family in early 80's, Rs.30,000/- per familyin late 80s and about Rs.50,000/- per family currently. However, the total families settledso far by the process are about 6000 only, against roughly 4.5 lakhs of families involvedin Jhum cultivation.The evaluation of pilot projects of Jhum control schemes of North-East by theAdministrative Staff College of India, Hyderabad, indicate that the average land areaprovided to each family for such settled cultivation is about 1.6 ha minimum being 1 hain Manipur with a maximum of 2.2 ha in Nagaland. The work included landdevelopment, soil conservation, irrigation facility, horticultural development andagricultural input in the form of seeds, fertilizers, etc. With shift to settled cultivationfrom shifting cultivation, the requirement of Jhum land per family has come down andreduction varies from 60% in Manipur to 22% in Meghalaya. In Mizoram the settledfamilies have stopped Jhum cultivation. A study by the Forest Survey of India indicatesthat while there has been an overall decline of shifting cultivation area in North-East byabout 14%, it showed increase in Arunachal Pradesh and significant increase in Assam.The reason for the schemes taken up for resettling jhumias not showing commendableprogress, has been attributed by the Administrative Staff College of India, Hyderabad intheir evaluation report, to inadequate irrigation facilities, lack of post project periodextension services, technical assistance, lack of communication and marketing facilitiesand inadequate land area provided. The general suggestions that have come up toimprove the situation includes proper education and awareness of tribal families,expansion and extension of irrigation, communication and marketing facilities, betterfinancial support, proper training and visit programmes, increasing the support period andagricultural input. There is also reference to the need to increase credit facilities to theJhum families and sensitisation of the jhumias to adopt improved agricultural practices,155