Changes in Agricultural Biodiversity: Implications for Sustainable Livelihood in the Himalaya

Himalayan mountain system is distinguished globally for a rich biodiversity and for its role in regulating the climate of the South Asia. Traditional crop-livestock mixed farming in the Himalaya is highly dependent on forests for fodder and manure prepared from forest leaf litter and livestock excreta. Apart from sustaining farm production, forests provide a variety of other tangible and intangible benefits, which are critical for sustainable livelihood of not only 115 million mountain people, but also many more people living in the adjoining plains. Extension of agricultural land- use coupled with replacement of traditional staple food crops by cash crops and of multipurpose agroforestry trees by fruit trees are widespread changes. Cultivation of Fagopyrum esculentum, Fagopyrum tataricum, Panicum miliaceum, Setaria italica and Pisum arvense has been almost abandoned. Increasing stress on cash crops is driven by a socio-cultural change from subsistence to market economy facilitated by improvement in accessibility andsupplyofstaplefoodgrainsatsubsidizedpriceby the government. Farmers have gained substantial economic benefits from cash crops. However, loss of agrobiodiversity implies more risks to local livelihood in the events of downfall in market price/demand of cashcrops,terminationofsupplyofstaplefoodgrains at subsidized price, pest outbreaks in a cash crop dominated homogeneous landscape and abnormal climate years. Indigenous innovations enabling improvement in farm economy by conserving and/enhancing agrobiodiversity do exist, but are highly localized. The changes in agrobiodiversity are such that soil loss and run-off from the croplands have dramatically increased together with increase in local pressure on forests. As farm productivity is maintained with forest-based inputs, continued depletion of forest resources will result in poor economic returns from agriculture to local people, apart from loss of global benefits from Himalayan forests. Interventions including improvement in traditionalmanureandmanagementofon-farm trees, participatorydevelopmentofagroforestryindegraded forestlandsandpoliciesfavoringeconomicbenefitsto local people from non-timber forest products could reduce the risks of decline in agricultural biodiversity and associated threats to livelihoods and Himalayan ecosystems.

Traditional Agrodiversity Management:A Case Study of Central Himalayan Village Ecosystem

Environmental,biological,socio-cultural and economic status variation existing in the Central Himalaya have led to the evolution of diverse and unique traditional agroecosystems,crop species and livestock,which facilitate the traditional mountain farming societies to sustain themselves.Indigenous agroecosystems are highly site specific and differ from place to place,as they have evolved along divergent lines.For maintenance of traditional agrodiversity management the farmers of the Central Himalaya have evolved various types of crop rotations in consonance with the varied environmental conditions and agronomic requirements.In irrigated flat lands two crops are harvested in a year with negligible fallow period but in rainfed conditions if a cropping sequence is presumed to be starting after winter fallow phase then four major cropping seasons can be identified namely first kharif season(first crop season),first rabi season(second crop season),second kharif season(third crop season) and second rabi season(fourth crop season).Highest crop diversity is present in kharif season in comparison to rabi season.Traditionally the fields are left fallow after harvest of the second kharif season crop.Important characteristics of agrodiversity management are the use of bullocks for draughtpower,human energy as labour,crop residues as animal feed and animal waste mixed with forest litter as organic input to restore soil fertility levels.Women provide most of the human labour except for ploughing and threshing grain.The present study deals with assessment of traditional agrodiversity management such as(i) crop diversity,(ii) realized yield under the traditional practices and(iii) assess the differences of realized yields under sole and mixed cropping systems.It indicated that crop rotation is an important feature of the Central Himalayan village ecosystem which helps to continue the diversity of species grown,as are the distribution of crops in the growing period and the management of soil fertility.The cropping diversity existing and the sequences practiced by the traditional farmers seems to have achieved high degree of specialization and thus even when the yield/biomass variations are about 60%,the farmers continue to practice these sequences as they need to maintain diversity and synergistic relationships of crops in addition to manage the food and labour requirements for crop husbandry.Crop yields are generally higher in irrigated systems than rainfed systems and in sole cropping as compared with mixed cropping.However,gross biological and economic yields are higher in mixed cropping than sole cropping systems.