Traditional land and water management systems of North-East hill region

Abstract

The tribal societies of different states of NEH regions with long history and traditions have developed ingenious indigenous land and water management systems which have built-in eco-friendly systems of conservation, preservation, and utilization of natural resources. The systems described include 'zabo' farming system, agriculture with Alder Tree and ' Panikheti ' of terraced

rice fields of Nagaland, water management in Apatani Plateau of Arunachal Pradesh, rice-cum- fish culture of Arunachal Pradesh and Naga land, and bamboo drip irrigation system of Jaintia and Khasi Hills of Meghalaya. All these systems are in vogue for centuries and they are still sustainable. <BR>

These tribal indigenous systems of land and water management are mostly community managed and with locally available materials. Generally monocropping of rice is done using traditional methods of crop cultivation, which are labour intensive, using small amounts of organic manure and manual hand tools. The productivity is generally low. However, due to increasing

population, decreasing community participation, and local forest products, deforestation, and land degradation due to shifting cultivation, productivity of some of these systems is not enough to fulfil the needs of the farmers. <BR>

Use of low cost synthetic materials, appropriate fanning tools and implements, improved package of practices for crop cultivation, and subsidiary land based practices like scientific fish culture, cattle management and growing of hortic ultural crops, grasses and legumes, etc will improve the productivity and income of the farmers and these eco- friendly systems will again become economically viable.