Jhum Cultivation with tree farming key to green Nagaland

Thepfulhouvi Solo

CERTAIN mistaken belief seems to enjoy an amount of certain elite assumption about Jhum Cultivation in Nagaland. They are:
i. Due to increase of Population, Jhum Cycle is increasingly becoming shorter and shorter in Nagaland.ii. ‘forest cover’ has decreased in Nagaland due to Jhum Cultivation.
The Image of the face of a 28 year old Youth with facial features of a Han Chinese is the constructed Average of 7 Billions of the World Population today. India, with a population increased to over 1.3 Billions would probably overtake China in 2030 and the face will likely be replace by an Image of a 28 year old looking more Indian than a Hun Chinese.
Nagaland’s population is 19,78,502 according to Mrs. V. Hekali IAS, Director Census figure 2011. Jhum Cultivating Population in Nagaland has however,decreased (not increased) for the following underlying facts and reasons:
i. The almost entire Work Force of every Family, of every Village, of every Tribe has gone to Schools, Colleges and Universities. Nagaland has become the 10th most Literate State in India with Literacy percentage of 79.6 (O:82.8%, O+:76.1%) within one and half Generation.
ii. Most of the able bodied Youths of the Village are migrating to Cities and Urban Areas in search of better employment opportunities.
iii. Opportunities for jobs have increased in the Urban Cities.
iv. Only the old Father and the old Mother of the family is available in the Village for Jhum Cultivation.
l Most Families now are unable to cultivate their jhum Plots in the Village Annual Coupe their forefathers cultivated; today for lack of work force in the family many jhumland Areas lie uncultivated, even Terrace Cultivation in Angami Areas increasingly abandoned due to dire impracticality.
l As a result, ‘forest cover’ has increased in Nagaland if Clouds have not covered FSI Satellite Imageries!?
All over the world, Jhum Cultivation is today mentioned as the Mother of Forest Destruction: the promethean task of replenishing the lost vegetation at the earliest and easiest, is done through the marriage of Jhum Cultivation with TREE FARMING to give birth to Timber, the costliest renewable economic Resource of the Subsistence level Agriculture of Nagaland Mountains. The ‘destructive force of Jhum Cultivation’ is TRANSFORMED into a ‘generative force of Wood Production’by Tree Farming together with the production of normal agriculture Rice.
This is the ultimate Solution to the necessary evil of Jhum Cultivation. This is not a beautiful Theory or a surprisingly attractive Hypothesis: This is the proven GREEN GOSPEL OF NAGALAND.
Nowhere in India; not from Ladak to Kerala, not from Jaisalmer in the extreme West Rajasthan to extreme North East, has the Writer seen the Public individually and privately planted so much Trees than in Nagaland! This is not because the Forest Department lectured them to do so; the Jhum Cultivators themselves have found it out practically.
Farm Forestry, which in practice is a good, if half-baked Agriculture Idea at its best; it is only a side-income for the Rice Cultivator. The Final Yield aimed is Rice (O. sativa) only. Rice production is not the economic solution to his subsistence level Agri-Economy of Nagaland. No one in Nagaland can purchase even a Nano Car from the sale of his Rice product!
Farm Forestry tags the Economy of the Cultivator no better than before in the clutches of the Soil. Farm Forestry can not transform mountain Jhum Cultivation into an Economic Power House for a People. It has been so before Animal Backbone replaced Human Backbone for Agriculture since the dawn of Human Civilization. Mountains have never provided the foundation for Agriculture Economy for a People in History of Man!
The Herculean task of TRANSFORMING the Jhum Cultivation from a Subsistence level Agricultural in Nagaland to an economic Power House lies in TREE FARMING through JHUM CULTIVATION. In This is a proven practice in Nagaland and is named the GREEN GOSPEL OF NAGALAND.
This surprisingly refreshing Idea is applicable in any other mountainous regions of India. This is not a Theory or a Hypothesis: Nagaland has developed it and practices it in creating TREE FARMING. Nowhere in India has Tree Planting become like a Movement than the Nagas in Nagaland has.
The only requirements are:
i. Availability of a subsistence level Agriculture Practice of Jhum Cultivation in a people.
ii. Every Cultivator has his owns land as in Nagaland.
iii. Availability of Vast vacant jhum lands as in Nagaland.
iv. Availability of root-shoot Cutting of Tree species, or extra-ordinarily fast growing SEEDS.
Unlike exhaustible Minerals; Biodiversity and Timber are Renewable Land Resources and must seek the Constitutional Protection of Article 371A of the constitution of India for Nagaland.

The writer is a I F S Retired(RR -68), Retired. Principal Secretary, Forest , Environment and Wildlife, Nagaland.