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Incentivizing Hill Farmers for Promoting Agroforestry as an Alternative to Shifting Cultivation in Northeast India

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Agroforestry for Degraded Landscapes

Abstract

Northeast India (NEI) falls in the Indo-Burma biodiversity hotspot, which is one of the biodiversity hotspots of the world, that covers 17.2 million ha of land under forests, constituting ~25% of India’s total forest area. Hill farmers in NEI are represented by over 100 different indigenous communities practising shifting cultivation for millennia in this biodiversity hotspot. Shifting cultivation, involving slash-and-burn agriculture, is one of the predominant land use systems in NEI and an important driver of soil degradation and greenhouse gas (GHG) emission. This work aims to contribute to better understanding of the system and provide decision-makers with alternative management options. Therefore, the specific objectives of this chapter are to (1) quantify tree diversity, biomass, and soil carbon dynamics in slash-and-burn agriculture, (2) assess ecosystem disservices caused by slash-and-burn agriculture, and (3) identify best alternatives to restore degraded land under slash-and-burn agriculture. We find that shifting cultivation is an important element of the cultural identity of indigenous communities of NEI. However, the shortened fallow cycle as practised currently is not ecologically sustainable and economically viable. We also find that slash-and-burn lands can be transformed into sustainable agroecosystems if best management practices such as agroforestry systems are widely promoted through appropriate incentive schemes. We propose developing appropriate cash incentive mechanism as a part of payment for ecosystem services for adoption and promotion of agroforestry systems in degraded slash-and-burn landscapes.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Ecology and Environmental Sciences, Assam University, Silchar, Assam, India

    Arun Jyoti Nath & A. K. Das

  2. Department of Forestry, Mizoram University, Aizawl, India

    U. K. Sahoo

  3. Rain Forest Research Institute, Jorhat, India

    Krishna Giri

  4. Department of Plant Biology and Biodiversity Management, Addis Ababa University, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

    G. W. Sileshi

  5. School of Agricultural, Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, South Africa

    G. W. Sileshi

Authors
  1. Arun Jyoti Nath
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  2. U. K. Sahoo
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  3. Krishna Giri
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  4. G. W. Sileshi
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  5. A. K. Das
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Natural Resource Management Division, Indian Council of Agricultural Research, New Delhi, India, ICAR-Central Soil Salinity Research Institute, Karnal, Haryana, India

    Jagdish Chander Dagar

  2. Department of Botany, Kurukshetra University, Kurukshetra, Haryana, India

    Sharda Rani Gupta

  3. Department of Range and Forest Resources, Botswana University of Agriculture and Natural Resources (BUAN), Gaborone, Botswana

    Demel Teketay

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Nath, A.J., Sahoo, U.K., Giri, K., Sileshi, G.W., Das, A.K. (2020). Incentivizing Hill Farmers for Promoting Agroforestry as an Alternative to Shifting Cultivation in Northeast India. In: Dagar, J.C., Gupta, S.R., Teketay, D. (eds) Agroforestry for Degraded Landscapes. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-4136-0_14

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