Jhum cultivation in Nokrek Biosphere Reserve Meghalaya India Northeast India 2004

Jhum or Jhoom cultivation is the form of

slash-and-burn agriculture Slash-and-burn agriculture is a form of shifting cultivation that involves the cutting and burning of plants in a forest or woodland to create a field called a swidden. The method begins by cutting down the trees and woody plants in an area. The ...

that is practised in certain parts of

Northeast India Northeast India, officially the North Eastern Region (NER), is the easternmost region of India representing both a geographic and political Administrative divisions of India, administrative division of the country. It comprises eight States and ...

and by the

indigenous communities There is no generally accepted definition of Indigenous peoples, although in the 21st century the focus has been on self-identification, cultural difference from other groups in a state, a special relationship with their traditional territ ...

Chittagong Hill Tracts The Chittagong Hill Tracts (), often shortened to simply the Hill Tracts and abbreviated to CHT, refers to the three hilly districts within the Chittagong Division in southeastern Bangladesh, bordering India and Myanmar (Burma) in the east: Kh ...

Bangladesh Bangladesh, officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by population, eighth-most populous country in the world and among the List of countries and dependencies by ...

. It is a traditional agricultural technique that involves clearing land of trees and other vegetation, burning it, and then cultivating it for a set number of years.

Technique and crops

In the month of January, the jhummias cut down the forest on the slope of the hill. Afterwards, they clean the land and dry the wood, bamboo and plants they have cut down in the sun. Later around March–April, the dried material is burnt and made suitable for jhum cultivation. Next, around May the jhummias dig holes in the burnt jhum soil and sow different types of seeds, including

paddy Paddy may refer to: People *Paddy (given name), a list of people with the given name or nickname *A nickname or slur for an Irish person Birds *Paddy (pigeon), a Second World War carrier pigeon *Snowy sheathbill or paddy, a bird species *Black ...

, sweet pumpkin,

cotton Cotton (), first recorded in ancient India, is a soft, fluffy staple fiber that grows in a boll, or protective case, around the seeds of the cotton plants of the genus '' Gossypium'' in the mallow family Malvaceae. The fiber is almost pure ...

sesame Sesame (; ''Sesamum indicum'') is a plant in the genus '' Sesamum'', also called benne. Numerous wild relatives occur in Africa and a smaller number in India. It is widely naturalized in tropical regions around the world and is cultivated for ...

, and

maize Maize (; ''Zea mays''), also known as corn in North American English, is a tall stout grass that produces cereal grain. It was domesticated by indigenous peoples in southern Mexico about 9,000 years ago from wild teosinte. Native American ...

, which are cultivated several months later, depending on the particular crop. Jhum cultivation does not take place in some years due to

drought A drought is a period of drier-than-normal conditions.Douville, H., K. Raghavan, J. Renwick, R.P. Allan, P.A. Arias, M. Barlow, R. Cerezo-Mota, A. Cherchi, T.Y. Gan, J. Gergis, D. Jiang, A. Khan, W. Pokam Mba, D. Rosenfeld, J. Tierney, ...

. Yields are expected to be high if there is no infestation of rats and insects. Jhum cultivation requires that farmers move their plots from year to year to allow the land to recover. Previously, natural forests of the hills were kept uncultivated for a long time. In recent times, however, the uncultivated period has been dangerously reduced from the traditional ten years to two to three years. This is due to depletion of agricultural land and loss of available land due to population pressure, the Kaptai reservoir, and large-scale non-tribal settlement.

Drawbacks

Jhum cultivation causes extensive damage to the environment. Harmful effects of jhum cultivation include loss of

soil fertility Soil fertility refers to the ability of soil to sustain agricultural plant growth, i.e. to provide plant habitat and result in sustained and consistent yields of high quality.

, soil erosion,

deforestation Deforestation or forest clearance is the removal and destruction of a forest or stand of trees from land that is then converted to non-forest use. Deforestation can involve conversion of forest land to farms, ranches, or urban use. Ab ...

, destruction of

wildlife Wildlife refers to domestication, undomesticated animals and uncultivated plant species which can exist in their natural habitat, but has come to include all organisms that grow or live wilderness, wild in an area without being species, introdu ...

habitat, and flooding of rivers and lakes. It reduces the soil fertility and crop yield over time and as a result, production declines so much that a Jhummia family cannot survive in one place. The most widely followed minimum seven to eight-year cycle is currently reduced to three to four years which is not at all sufficient. Due to these reasons, the crop yield has declined substantially, making it critical to devise suitable alternatives to jhum cultivation.

References

{{Reflist Geography of South Asia Agriculture in India Agriculture in Bangladesh