Towards settled cultivation from traditional jhum-A case study in Arunachal Pradesh, India

Abstract

The shifting cultivation in Arunachal Pradesh is dynamic in nature and is known as ‘Jhum’. Upland rice is the main crop grown in mixture with maize, foxtail, finger millet, beans, cassava, yam, banana, sweet potato, ginger, chillies, vegetables, etc. in such system. The single crop of rice is preferred in the second year and this continues for 2-3 years and then it is left for fertility build up through regeneration of vegetation. The period is known as ‘fallow period’. But this leads to considerable soil erosion due to heavy intense rainfall instead of increasing its fertility. The fallow period has been reduced from 10-20 years to 5-7 years. Fortunately the mindset of the jhumias of East Siang district of Arunachal Pradesh, India has been changed. They cultivate citrus, bamboo and tache (wallichia) trees in these fallow lands, which not only prevent the land from soil erosion, but also give income even from a short fallow period. This is a little shift from the traditional practice towards a sustainable practice adopted by the jhumias. The paper presents the current scenario of settled cultivation from traditional jhum in reference to East Siang district of Arunachal Pradesh.