Research interventions continue for agriculture and allied sectors
From Saurav Bora
GUWAHATI: Hurdles are many for the ICAR to achieve the desired result while it tries to improve the livelihood of the farming community.
For a resource-rich agrarian region characterised by hilly terrain and climate variations, the role of research in facilitating farm growth assumes importance.
Till the mid-1970s, the Northeast region did not have a facilitator to hinge on when it came to farm research and technology application. However, the inception of the ICAR Research Complex for North Eastern Hill Region at Umiam has made worthwhile interventions in research, extension and human resource development activities for agriculture and allied sectors of the region’s mountain ecosystem.
Currently, the institute has a presence in Mizoram, Tripura, Manipur, Sikkim, Meghalaya and Nagaland and has the support of six regional centres and 20 Krishi Vigyan Kendras (KVKs) across the region.
With agriculture being the prime source of livelihood for the majority (85%) of rural population in the region, the institute at Umiam has focused on research on agriculture and allied sectors, including training and capacity building of the farmers of the region.
However, critics have pointed out that despite spending crores of rupees for research, there was no proactive approach to reach out to majority of farmers in the region to impart the new initiatives developed by the ICAR. They pointed out that there should be a paradigm shift in the approach and the officers should have regular interaction with the farmers so that the farming community can reap the benefits of varied achievements without directly approaching the ICAR for their needs.
The research papers will only gather dust if the findings are not imparted to the farmers in time, they said
However, according to ICAR, apart from a series of interventions under various projects, the institute has been primarily working on three flagship programmes- improvement of jhum cultivation, temperate horticulture and trans-boundary diseases during the XII Five Year Plan.
Rice varieties suitable for jhum lands of the Northeast have been developed and released by the institute, leading to improvement in productivity and returns to farmers.
“Integrated approach having soil conservation measures, hedge rows intercropping, agro-forestry, bunding and terracing, improved cropping systems have been packaged as interventions for rehabilitation and restoration of jhum lands. The technologies have been demonstrated in 50 hectare land in Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Manipur and Arunachal Pradesh,” a resource person at the institute, said. The institute has had the distinction of first time detection of porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome (PRRS) in the country and also first reported the NDM-1 gene from samples of animal origin. “Classical swine fever virus (CSFV), one of the most devastating diseases for the pig industry in North East is endemic here, and the division has developed the full diagnostic facility in term of serological, isolation and molecular diagnostics,” he said.
Key projects and impact on farmers
Over the years, key projects such as NICRA (National Innovations on Climate Resilient Agriculture), Tribal Sub Plan (TSP), Farmers First, Biotech KISAN (Krishi Innovation Science Application Network), KIRAN (Knowledge Innovation Repository on Agriculture in Northeast), et al have made a perceptible impact as far as benefits accrued to the stakeholders are concerned.
Under the Tribal Sub Plan, as many as 41,720 tribal families in 287 villages of 26 districts of Meghalaya, Manipur, Nagaland, Tripura, Arunachal Pradesh, Sikkim, Mizoram and Assam have been covered. Since the inception of the Farmers First project in the year 2016, till date 800 farmers have benefitted across 10 villages. Biotech KISAN was inducted this year and till date, 120 farmers have benefitted across eight villages.
Under KIRAN (Knowledge Innovation Repository on Agriculture in Northeast), the institute has been disseminating agro-advisories on best management practices, weather forecasting and contingency measures through SMS services. A total of 5620 farmers are being covered under the programme.
But the Northeast with its unique topography has a fragile ecosystem and climate-resilient methods/technologies have to be developed and existing technologies taken to the farmers’ fields for enhancing climatic resilience in the hill farms.
Here, the (NICRA), a network project launched in February 2011, has assumed a significant role in terms of enhancing resilience of agriculture to climate change and climate vulnerability through strategic research and technology demonstration.
Since 2013-14, as many as 109,219 farmers across the Northeast have benefitted under NICRA project.
Under the project, four aspects are being looked at in all the six states having more or less similar topography. They are climate resilience development of stress-tolerant rice and maize varieties, natural resource management for hill agriculture, genetic improvement of indigenously adopted animal breeds and technology demonstration in the farmers’ fields.
“For instance, in states such as Mizoram and Arunachal Pradesh where natural calamities such as drought and floods respectively occur, crops which can withstand such calamities have to be developed. There is a need for standardisation and study,” a resource person at the institute, said.
Much needs to be done in the field of contingency crop planning – during post-natural calamity situation to mitigate the stress on crops.
Then again, sustaining organic farming in Northeast is another challenge.
“While farming in Sikkim has become fully organic and Meghalaya is on the verge of becoming organic, farmers have to be educated, equipped and incentivized to sustain organic farming. Then again, organic farming under Mission Organic has to be up-scaled and fitted into the livelihoods of farmers in the Northeast. Soil health and nutrients too have to be ensured,” he said.
“Other aspects such as developing artificial intelligence tools for improving agriculture in the hills, exploring a viable integrated farm system model in the farmers’ fields and making quality seeds (agriculture/horticulture) available to the hill farmers are to be considered by the instiute in the years to come,” he added.
Former director Dr SV Ngachan, who has been with ICAR-RC NEH, Umiam for a decade since 2007, says that extension activities of ICAR need to be optimized in the coming years.
“Despite being resource-rich with soil conducive to organic farming, the Northeast has not been fully tapped because of factors such as infrastructural and technological deficiencies and a need to impart skills and educate the hill farmers. Lack of investment and mechanization for hilly terrain has hampered optimization of farm growth. But with agriculture being a state subject, the government’s role in driving agricultural growth becomes imperative as ICAR can be the facilitator in farm research and development,” Ngachan told The Shillong Times.
He further stated that proper policies by the state governments can help in regard to farm growth in Northeast. “We have to focus on nutritional aspects and products which can be exported and apart from taking technology to the fields, there has to be proper marketing and promotion so that the farmers are benefitted,” he said.
Limitations
Even as the institute has crossed many hurdles and worked untiringly to find solutions for the problems of resource poor and topographically disadvantageous farmers of the region, there are miles to cover in the coming decades.
The challenge to secure sustainable livelihoods in the changing climatic scenario for the farmers of North Eastern Hill region will have to be shouldered by the institute.
“The institute is set up in the fragile ecosystem of Northeast in which connectivity is a major setback apart from inclement weather. The connectivity in the rural areas is in a deplorable condition,” ICAR Research Complex, NEH director, Dr Narendra Prakash said.
Both maximum and minimum temperatures are increasing. The resultant effects on crops in terms of increased evapo-transpiration and respiration, through increased water and heat stress are imminent in the region.
However, the endeavour of the institute has been to nullify the adverse impacts of climate change on crop and livestock through multi-faceted but integrated research on identification of suitable adaptation and mitigation measures.
State-wise constraints, key interventions
Meghalaya
One of the significant achievements of ICAR-RC NEH (Umiam) has been the development of a clone of the Lakadong variety of turmeric, an important crop cultivated by farmers in Meghalaya having high market potential.
The demand for the variety, known for its high curcumin content (over 7 per cent), has increased substantially in the past decade. But owing to low yield potential coupled with susceptibility to leaf spot and leaf blotch, there was a demand-supply gap.
Therefore, to meet the high demand for the variety, ICAR-NEH has through clonal selection form Lakadong a few years back developed a new variety, Megha Turmeric-1, which has a curcumin content of about 6.8 per cent.
“In the past decade, the demand of turmeric in Meghalaya has increased substantially. But availability of quality seed material is one of the important bottlenecks in expansion of area, which ultimately hampers production and productivity. So increase in availability of quality planting material (Megha Turmeric-1) is need of the hour for tapping the available potential in turmeric trade,” sources at ICAR-RC, NEH say.
Then again, strawberry cultivation using micro irrigation (drip) supported by mulching material was experimented in Meghalaya which offered a cost effective way of soil moisture conservation and subsequent utilization by the plants.
Arunachal Pradesh
Significant research has created visible impact among farmers of Arunachal Pradesh. The multi-tier integrated Farming System (IFS) has improved the livelihood options of the farmers besides enhancing cropping intensity and employment generation in 22 villages and 1538 households till date.
Horticulture based farming system for sustainability in jhum land was developed and about 355 farmers successfully adopted the technology in their left over jhum land.
Mizoram
The state is having deficit of about 70 per cent in rice production. A major constraint in increasing rice production in the state is low availability of (wet rice cultivation) WRC areas (only 15620 ha). Jhum cultivation is also a predominant farming system in the state occupying 22,633 ha involving 58751 farm families.
As an effort to increase the overall productivity of rice in Mizoram, ICAR introduced Gomati, a medium maturing (125-130 days) variety, tolerant to diseases performed exceedingly well (with a yield of 4.2-4.5 t/ha) in 3 districts of Mizoram, i.e. Kolasib, Lunglei and Champhai.
Nagaland
Dimapur, one of the 11 districts of Nagaland, has 80 per cent area under low land condition, where farmers cultivate wet rice as mono crop. As an intervention, KVK Dimapur demonstrated the cultivation of oilseeds (mustard/toria) as second crop for increasing cropping intensity and residual moisture management.
Sikkim
KVK-East Sikkim in collaboration with ICAR-NOFRI made interventions for cultivation of vegetable pea under no tillage technology in rice-fallow at Timpyem village under NICRA (Technology Demonstration Component) project to enhance the cropping intensity of the village by utilizing the residual soil moisture of Kharif rice during 2014-15 and 2015-16
Tripura
Pig husbandry has always been a traditional and most valued livelihood option among the tribal villagers of South Tripura district. However, the pig production systems in villages of the district are primitive and poorly remunerative. Therefore a survey was conducted in one such village and training on scientific pig rearing practices conducted for 20 selected farmers and farm women.
ICAR-RC for NEH at Umiam is the brain child of “father of green revolution in India” and the then director general of ICAR New Delhi, Dr. M.S. Swaminathan, who emphasised a separate unit to carry out research and development of farming in the Northeast during a seminar in 1973.
The baton for research heritage of the pioneer agricultural scientist of the institute is now with the new generation scientists. Working together in a multidisciplinary team to counter the problems faced by the farmers for doubling their income is the need of the hour.