Agricultural sustainability and food security of Jhum systems in Nagaland, NE India

Little is known about agricultural productivity and rural communities' food security in Nagaland (NE India), where high population growth leads to increasingly shorter fallow periods and a reported decline in soil productivity. This problem is particularly severe in the Mon district, where 93% of the population depend on shifting cultivation and the duration of fallow has reduced from more than fifteen to five years. This study was carried out in two villages, Hongphoy and Minyakshu, to quantify the gap between local farmers' food demand in cereals and the amounts harvested from their slash-and-burn fields. The data are based on interviews to determine household size, food consumption, crop yields, duration of fallow periods and field sizes over a two-year period. The results indicate that per capita field size for cultivation averaged 1,800 m(2) in Hongphoy and 1,100 m(2) in Minyakshu. Adult daily calorific intake in 2004-05 from harvested cereals such as rice, millet and maize was 9,100 kJ and 7,300 kJ in Hongphoy. In Minyakshu, the equivalent values were 6,800 and 6,400 kJ. On average, the 2005 harvests provided feed for an average household for around nine months, meaning that cereals were purchased to supplement a shortage of 130 t of rice in Hongphoy and 480 t in Minyakshu.