Agricultural production and productivity in India is intricately built around the rearing of animals. God created the earth and made animals to enrich it naturally so that man can sow, eat and live. This is the sole intention and purpose of the Creator and the Maker.
Earth scientists are of the opinion that Our Mother Earth can carry and sustain 2-3 billion people at a good standard of living over a long term. At 7.9 billion people now (still counting), she is already carrying more than double her carrying capacity. This was the reason why the law of nature had to be manipulated to feed the ever growing population and for which green revolution, white revolution, blue revolution was introduced in the sixties that did wonders in Indian agricultural renaissance.
It is the law of nature that every phenomenon on earth has its ebb and flow and Government of India is now promoting Natural Farming as Bharatiya Prakritik Krishi Paddhati Program (BPKP) under Parampargat Krishi Vikas Yojana (PKVY) which integrates crops, trees and livestock with functional biodiversity. This concept of zero budget natural farming is do nothing and based on nature’s principles of farming with no till, no chemical and dispersal of clay seed balls to propagate plants is done.
I am of the personal opinion that agricultural policy in Nagaland needs to be re-visited. For that, we need to balance our policies between modern agriculture and our time tested ancient traditional systems and methods of cultivation. Agricultural activities should be productive and to some extend remunerative but it cannot be at the expense of long term sustainability and subsistence. While rushing to introduce exotic and high yielding seeds- Crops, livestock, Poultry that are not native to our land we have now almost discarded our indigenous seeds. National Bureau of Animal Genetic Resources, Karnal is insisting our state to register our indigenous livestock and poultry birds in the National Breed Registry. Besides Thothu cattle and tenyivo pig, we have almost discarded all our rich indigenous livestock and poultry genetic resources and nothing to register now. Than what about the re-incarnation of the three tenets of natural farming- crops, trees, livestock after 60 years of agricultural revolution, connoted as destructive revolution by some agricultural scientists. The re-incarnation concept is that the dry fallen leaves of tall standing trees, shrubs, bushes, weeds will act as natural mulching where the soil will retain enough moisture for microbial growth and naturally prepares the soil for the next jhum cycle and that becomes natural habitat for wild animals, burrowers, birds and they in turn manures the soil with their excreta, urine, droppings.
In plain agriculture like Assam, livestock are allowed to graze on fallows and browse the stubbles instead of burning so that their dung, urine and foraging can naturally enrich the field. Dung and urine of animals contain beneficial micro organisms and major plant nutrients like Nitrogen,
Phosphorus, Potassium, Sulphur, Magnesium, Calcium and certain micronutrients and the urine of cow is a natural pesticide. On this count, our desi cow is apparently the purest as far as the microbial content of dung and urine goes.
Everything of agricultural produce is land based and every agricultural policy starts from the land and so the land holding system of the farmer is the first consideration. The average land holding in India is about a hectare whereas in the USA it is about 178 hectares. In an already developed country like Great Britain only 1.5 percent of the population is employed in agriculture but in India for that matter Nagaland 70 % or more depend on agriculture and above all land holding system is mostly clan or community based. It is for this reason that backyard or mass agriculture in Nagaland is always result oriented. We don’t have any commercial pig farm both in public and private sectors but backyard farmers are able to meet the local pork demand for any occasional functions. The ever success story of Anand Milk Union Limited (AMUL), Gujarat is the archetype of such mass dairy farmers movement.
According to soil experts it will take a thousand years to form an inch of top soil which than is not in our reach as the way we have damaged and degraded our soil by the use of chemicals, pesticides and growing of alien crops that are not native to us. Unless we learn to live with our forest, animals and biodiversity, agriculture will not sustain us as before. For posterity sake I vouch for subsistence agriculture or in other words- production at a level which is enough only for one’s own use without any surplus for trade.
Dr. N. Mhonchan Shitiri
Pagoda Ki, Rainbow colony, Burma Camp Dimapur
