By Patricia Mukhim
Farming has been the prime occupation of women in rural North East India. The agricultural sector employs nearly 80% of economically active women in the country. Women make up 33% of the agriculture labour force of which 48% are self-employed farmers. What is abysmal is that only 13% of such farmers own land or have land rights. The Economic Survey 2017-18 identifies an increasing feminisation of agriculture as more and more men migrate to urban centres for work or take up non-farm work as agriculture is proving to be a difficult proposition with uncertainties posed by climate change.
India’s Northeast is a biodiversity hot-spot and therefore more susceptible to climate change. A study conducted in 2015 by this writer and Dr Govind Kelkar, Executive Director, GenDev Centre for Research and Innovation, found that some crops which women farmers had grown traditionally had stopped producing the desired quantity per capita and therefore they had to shift to other crops. These women farmers had experienced climate change manifested in unpredictable rainfall or periods of dry weather and the adverse impacts on their crops. They also rely heavily on the Agriculture Department for what they call better yielding varieties of vegetables. However, climate change experts have expressed their reservations on this heavy dependence on high yielding varieties of rice and vegetables (many of them genetically modified) saying that they are more susceptible to pests and to the vagaries of weather whereas the indigenous variety of crops were more resilient.
Initially seeds were gathered at the end of every season and conserved until the next planting season. In recent times however, with the assistance of NGOs for instance CARITAS, and NESFAS, seed banks have been set up and managed more professionally so that seeds are properly dehydrated and do not rot while storing. Another example of positive intervention is found in Nagaland under the global development cooperation project ‘Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services in Agragrian Landscapes’ implemented by Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH, and funded under the International Climate Initiative (IKI) of the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action (BMWK) in close cooperation with the Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Nuclear Safety and Consumer Protection (BMUV) and the Federal Foreign Office (AA). In this instance, learnings from a GIZ assisted rice seed exchange programme translated into a gene pool and a livelihood project funded by the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC), Government of India which is implemented in five districts of Nagaland
However, such assistance by NGOs and development cooperation projects has to be upscaled as these seed banks are few and far between. In addition, there is a need to educate farmers to come together and make the seed banks more sustainable. Seed banks moreover help to facilitate the farmer’s access to markets and give them more choice over what they grow. Professionally managed community seed banks enable rural tribal farmers to exercise their choice to go in for indigenous seeds and not on genetically modified high yielding variety of seeds that are highly dependent on expensive inputs such as fertilisers and pesticides.
Women farmers at Marwah and Khrang village still rely on jhum (shifting cultivation) to feed their families as well as to sell what is beyond their consumption levels to the markets. The beauty about jhum fields is that they provide a variety of food crops from ginger to millet, perilla seeds (rich in Omega-3) to protein rich sweet potatoes, tapioca, cucumber, turmeric and tomatoes. All these vegetables grow adjacent to and nourish each other. Women cultivate in a particular plot for two to three years after which they have to leave the place fallow for about five years before they revisit the place for another cropping cycle. This traditional wisdom that the women engaged in shifting cultivation possess could be significantly complimented by jhum optimisation and intensification measures such as those being taught to the farmers of Khawrihnim village, Mizoram. These measures are aimed at increasing the cultivation period, improving fallow management to restore soil fertility and soil moisture recharge for improving underground water and creation of secondary forests for economic yield of trees. Apart from being biodiversity-enhancing land-use practices in agriculture, these measures will also help generate subsidiary income for women farmers. This is especially important with the transformation of land ownership patterns in Northeast India
There was a time when land was still a community asset so women could move from one place to another for their cultivation. However in large parts of Meghalaya, Nagaland, Tripura, Manipur and Mizoram there is an elite capture of land – the so-called absentee landlords who acquire rural farmlands for contract farming and grow rice and vegetables or fruits for the markets.
Even in the face of these present-day changes, traditional wisdom continues to serve women farmers and it would be worthwhile to document this astuteness of our women farmers. For instance, when women grow maize they would also grow beans alongside. The reason is that maize depletes the soil of nutrients while beans replenish the nutrients by fixing nitrogen.
Besides vegetables and crops, women farmers also rear pigs and chicken in their homesteads. Meat is an important source of protein in the North-eastern states. Studies have shown that out of the total food expenditure 15 % in rural areas and 18% in urban areas is spent on meat. Unfortunately, although meat (essentially pork and beef) is a staple food of the people of Northeast India, the eight states have had to import meat from elsewhere as they are not able to produce enough meat internally (as per data by the National Sample Survey Office dated 2010). Only in recent times women have been trained by the Veterinary Department on pig rearing. High yielding varieties of imported pigs which are reared mainly for piglets are now being imported from the Myanmar border. These pigs known as Meishan China can produce about 22 piglets at one cycle. The local pigs reared earlier are insufficient to meet the growing demand for meat especially since pork is a meat of choice in all the tribal states of the Northeast.
Also, North Eastern Council (NEC) has been trying to encourage farmers to rear pigs and cattle since the climate is suitable. A few progressive farmers have got into the business of cattle rearing in Meghalaya’s East Khasi Hills and Jaintia Hills and also in the Garo Hills. In the other North-eastern states, pig rearing is becoming a profession for several families. However, the feed still comes from outside the state since the possibilities of producing pig feed internally has not yet been explored. This is the case with poultry feed and fish feed as well.
In Meghalaya’s Jaintia Hills women have formed self-help groups and engage in growing turmeric. Lakadong Turmeric which is grown in Laskein, Jaintia Hills has a curcumin content of 7.9 % which is the highest in the world. With the help of the horticulture department and the Farmers’ Commission this turmeric is now branded and sold online. The requisite machinery for drying and grinding ginger and even the machines for measuring the curcumin content are available locally. This has empowered women farmers and given them a mission on which to proceed so that they are able to supplement their family incomes and invest in the education of their children.
What is a matter of concern is the loss of rice species due to invasion by the high yielding variety of rice seeds supplied by the Government. An intervention to set up seed banks and enable women to manage these banks efficiently is the need of the hour. In addition, it is important to document traditional wisdom in farming which is gradually being lost. The herbs and indigenous mushrooms that are part of tribal cuisine and culture are also gradually ousted out in favour of more exotic varieties. This loss of diversity in food habits and the rapid commercialisation of agriculture for economic survival need to be balanced with conservation of the indigenous crops and herbs as in case there is crop failure in monoculture farming, we would still be able to harvest some food crops from the jhum fields. Moreover, the women farmers cultivate carefully managed farms with crops that do not require too many fertilisers or pesticides
There is nothing more valuable than farming for food self-sufficiency and food sovereignty which institutions like the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) are pursuing assiduously. In this regard, women farmers in Northeast India, whose agricultural traditions are steeped in centuries of organic and agro-bio diverse practices, are primed to take the lead. They just need support and encouragement.
(The writer is a Journalist and Women’s Rights Activist. Views expressed are personal)
Disclaimer:
The views expressed in this article are personal and do not represent Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH as an organisation.