Naga Farmers: Marketing Challenge

To promote agro forestry-based income-generating activities in 104 villages, the NEPED project has invested Rs.8.0 crore to help create a revolving fund. The jhum practice is considered environmentally degrading. The project seeks to improvise upon this traditional practice to protect the environment and generate income for farmers.

Nagaland is a hilly region where farmers follow the age-old agricultural practice known as shifting or jhum cultivation. An identified patch of forest land is first cleared by felling and burning the undergrowth. Then a number of minor crops are grown along with the main paddy crop. A jhum plot is usually abandoned after two years as the plot loses its productivity, primarily due to loss of topsoil and weed infestation.

New plots are prepared for continuing the farming activities while the old plots are left fallow for
regeneration. The jhum practice is considered environmentally degrading as there is uncontrolled clearing of forest for agriculture purposes. The NEPED project seeks to improvise upon this traditional practice to protect the environment and generate income for the farmers.
s

The current NEPED project is a continuation of the earlier NEPED project that was launched in 1995 and continued until June 2000. The basic strategy of the first phase was early regeneration of the jhum plots by planting trees along with the jhum crops before the plot was abandoned. However, it was pointed out at the end of the first project that although the vegetation cover in the state had improved, no income was generated for

A plot just cleared for jhum cultivation.

the farmers as the standing trees could not generate any profit.

The ongoing second phase of NEPED was launched in April 2001. The purpose of the project is to provide a mechanism for sustainable community-based land and natural resource management for poverty reduction. The project also seeks to offer improved livelihood options to Naga farmers.

The project, on completion, is expected to produce three broad outcomes:

a)	Farmers adopt environmentfriendly and sustainable jhum and agro-forestry practices.
b)	Improved community capacity, utilizing available resources for agro-based income generating activities.
c)	Joint development activities to improve market access for agroforestry produce.

LEFT : A typical first year jhum fallow land left alone for natural regeneration. RIGHT : A Plot just cleared for jhum cultivation.

The Government of Nagaland (GoN), through a specially raised team known as Project Operation Unit (POU), is implementing the project. The POU, comprising 12 officers, work as a group under a Team Leader, who in turn reports the progress of the project directly to the Chief Secretary, GoN.

In order to promote the agro forestry-based income generating activities in 104 villages, the project has invested Rs.8.0 crore in steps to build the revolving fund. Farmers in these villages take a loan from this fund to grow cashcrops like ginger, cardamom, turmeric, pepper, passion fruit, vegetables, beetle leaves, araca nut, etc. The fund is being administered by the Village Development Boards (VDBs).

All major activities like identification of beneficiaries, disbursal of loans, recovery of loans, recordkeeping, recycling of recovery, are done by the Secretary of the VDBs in consultation with the respective Village Councils. The POU provides overall supervision, undertakes regular monitoring and maintains reports on fund administration. The revolving fund has so far recovered more than 25 per cent of the investment for further recycling, and the fund is growing steadily.

Income Generation by Women’s Groups

An interesting feature of NEPED project is its special focus to support income generation by the women’s groups. NEPED has taken a decision to extend at least 25 per cent of the available revolving fund to women beneficiaries. As women in Nagaland do not have a legal right to own land, initially the project faced problem of extending working loans to women. When the project started promoting women’s groups, more and more women started accessing the loan facility for growing cash crops in leased out land. The success of this promotional activity has generated much enthusiasm, and the Rural Development Department this year has made a notification that land can be allotted by the Village Development Boards (VDBs) to women’s groups to enable them to take advantage of NEPED funding.

Progress this year

During this year an additional amount of Rs. 1.0 crore has been disbursed to 1,059 beneficiaries, from whom a recovery of about Rs. 1.41 crore has been made. Out of this recovery, an amount of Rs. 1.05 crore has been further recycled as loan. Over the past four years a total of Rs. 8.26 crore has been disbursed to 7,888 direct beneficiaries and Rs. 2.69 crore recycled as loan. As on March 2005, the total fund being revolved under this project including subsequent recoveries is to the tune of Rs. 10.85 crore, covering a total of 10,534 beneficiaries who are growing cash crops in about 2039 hectares of village land.

Major crops planted in the project area, using loan from the revolving fund, are ginger (138 hectares), cardamom (163 ha) passion fruit (99 ha), bananas (28 ha), orange (37 ha), pepper (22 ha), turmeric (27 ha), tea (29 ha), betel vine (38 ha), araca nut (19 ha), and vegetable and oil seed (161 ha). The cumulative figure of select cash crop plantation till date is: cardamom (563 ha), ginger (256 ha), passion fruit (187 ha) and others crops (936 ha).

Farmers are now facing yet another challenge: Marketing. While the project staff is making efforts, processing activities like sorting, drying, storing, packing, transportation, etc., are being done jointly at the village-level through community action to increase shelf-life of the produce. So far the project has installed 25 TERI models of up-draft gasifiers for drying cardamoms.

The jhum crop intensification model tested in eight demonstration plots produced a mixed result. Introduction of new crops like tea, on demonstration basis in the northern districts, has proved successful. As the NEPED project would come to an end in March, 2006, the project during this year concentrated more on developing and implementing an appropriate exit strategy.

Although the jhum crop intensification model is technically sound, farmers are slow to change from their traditional practices. So far large-scale production of cash crops has not faced any serious marketing problem, but the GoN should remain aware of the marketing aspect.