Page 26 - Agroforestry system - book inner (final corrected) - 9.-3-21_Neat

National level e-symposium on “Agroforestry system for augmenting livestock
productivity and empowering resource poor rural farmers”

It has been found that sericulture based system is highly relevant for these areas. Mulberry with
frenchbean-groundnut followed by mustard is a profitable cropping system with mulberry, guava/lemon/pear
and pineapple in paired rows and grasses on the bunds is an ideal system for silk production and additional
income from fruits and cattle rearing. Pedi-cum-sericulture is said to be more viable as the cash returns are
more frequent.

Shifting cultivation or slash and burn agriculture (locally called as Jhum) is the main form of agriculture
in the hills of North Eastern region of India. Due to mountainous terrain, settled cultivation constitute only
a small proportion of the total cultivated land which is confined mostly to Assam and valley lands in the
hill states. Shifting cultivation in the region is a complex system with wide variation that depends upon the
ecological variation in the area and cultural diversity among various tribal clans. However, the basic cropping
practice has many similarities. Shifting cultivation in its traditional form was not so harmful when the jhum
cycle was 15-20 years. But with reduction of jhum cycle, it has become environmentally destructive and a
faulty land use practice having very low output-input ratio (Tripathi and Barik 2003). The primary reason
may be increase in population which led to increase demand of food, ultimately resulting in reduction of
jhum cycle to 2-4 years. Such faulty landuse led to severe land degradation due to soil erosion and associated
factors such as reduction in soil organic carbon, nutrients etc., which resulted in decrease in crop yield.
There is decline of forest cover due to shifting cultivation in the NEH region although the degree varies
from one state to the other. Total area under Jhum also varies among the different hill states. According to
the Wastelands atlas of India (2011), maximum area under shifting cultivation is in Nagaland followed by
Arunachal Pradesh .However, Arunachal Pradesh shows maximum increase in jhum land during the period of
2005-06 to 2008-09.On the other hand, on considering national scenario, NER of India represents 80% of the
jhum lands, which is a matter of serious concern.
Western Himalayas

In the Western Himalayas, 60 to 70% requirement of the firewood is met from the arboreal components
and several MPTs along the bunds of agricultural lands or scattered trees on the pasture lands were developed
depending upon the needs, economics and environmental status of the land. High rate of net primary
productivity has been reported in agri-hortisilvicultural systems (206 t ha yr ) or agri-horticultural systems
-1
-1
(23 t ha yr a) and the species number in these systems is as high as 15 tree species. Generally 50 to 100
-1
-1
trees are planted in a hectare for fulfilling a part of the fodder and fuelwood requirements. Grewia optiva,
Celtis australis, Bauhinia variegata, Albizia chinensis, Bombax ceiba, Melia azedarach and Toona ciliata are
common MPTs while plum (Prunus domestica), apricot (P. armeniaca), peach (P. persica), almond (P. dulcis)
and pear (Pyrus communis) are common fruit trees of these systems. Hedge-row intercropping is feasible and
important on sloping hilly lands when prunned biomass during cropping season can be used for fodder and
fuelwood.
Indo-Gangetic Plains

Indo-Gangetic plains (IGP) comprises of four agro-climatic zones viz. Lower, Middle, Upper and Trans
Gangetic plains covering West Bengal, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Delhi, Uttarakhand, Chandigarh, Haryana,
Punjab and Rajasthan states. It’s having 169 districts with total geographical area of 43.70 million ha. The

Institute of Animal Nutrition, Centre for Animal Production Studies, TANUVAS
National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development 7