Bringing Culture Back: Traditional Agricultural Knowledge, Food Production and Sustainable Livelihood among Chuktia Bhunjia of Orissa

Abstract

This article deals with how Chuktia Bhunjia tribe of Orissa negotiates with their ecosystem to ensure that agricultural production and livelihood are sustainable. This study shows that the reasons behind continuation of traditional agriculture are the life experience with the traditional methods and cultural acceptance that not only make them economical but help in managing the ecosystem and natural resources management, and in procuring good production. However, a few of them have started adopting modern agriculture due to the influence of outsiders, including NGOs, they still follow the traditional methods and system. But such conventional intervention, to some extent, has rooted the culture, belief, taboo and knowledge out from practice. Also, despite the influence of mainstream agriculture, traditional agriculture still remains a practice and a system for many traditional agriculturist communities. From the study, it is argued that traditional knowledge, however, has been gaining momentum in contemporary development framework due to its ecological value; the successive agricultural policies fail to recognise traditional knowledge and, thus, it has been under threat particularly after the adoption of neo-liberal policies on agriculture in the form of introducing mechanised agricultural system and chemical fertilisers. Thus, given the contemporary debate of food crisis, ecological devastations and decline of traditional knowledge, there is a need to bring the culture back into agriculture through policy implementation. Also, given the decline of traditional knowledge, including agricultural, may be due to anti-development forest policies, there is urgent need to integrate the traditional knowledge with modern knowledge at functional level that can preserve not only their culture but they can access the conventional methods of agriculture in a sustainable way. There may be many communities practicing similar kinds of agriculture, if not exactly the same. Thus, policy makers must aware of such practices in order to make the agricultural policy successful.