SHILLONG, Sep 30: The North East Slow Food and Agrobiodiversity Society (NESFAS) along with The Indigenous Partnership (TIP) and Khasi people hailing from Nongtraw village in East Khasi Hills, were among the 58 awardees recognised for their contribution towards the award-winning publication Indigenous Peoples’ Food Systems: Insights on Sustainability and Resilience from the front line of Climate Change by the UN-FAO.
Hallbars, a sustainability research organisation, awarded the contribution of these organisations and individuals from Meghalaya as part of the Best 2021 Sustainability Publication Award, which was conferred upon the UN-FAO publication, which featured the Khasi Food system in one of the chapters.
Among the many Indigenous Food Systems that were documented, the shifting cultivation (jhum) practices in the Himalayan’s evergreen forest region of the Nongtraw village in East Khasi Hills constituted one of the chapters of the book. The chapter documented the Jhum practice, fishing and gathering food systems of the Khasi people.
A major factor behind the resilience of the Khasi Indigenous Food System is the strong local governance which has the confidence of the community. Entitling the ownership of land to women, who have a profound respect and understanding of Mother Earth, has played a huge role in the Khasi community.
Chairperson of NESFAS and coordinator of TIP, Phrang Roy, who was one of the panellists in the event, shared, “While we must be proud of our systems, as indigenous peoples we must have the ability to acknowledge the help of non-indigenous peoples and organisations that gave us friends and supporters.”
“The Nongtraw community members, through their collaborative studies with NESFAS and FAO of the UN, have demonstrated that severe food insecurity is virtually non-existent in traditional food systems that have not been marginalized by cash crops like broom grass, and other unsustainable initiatives,” Bah Roy told the local media in the aftermath of the award ceremony.
