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Widespread environmental degradation in the north-eastern region of India is aggravating poverty and food security, and forcing rural people to exploit dwindling resources to meet subsistence requirements. An IFAD-supported project has introduced a new model for sustainable management of the resource base. Now communities care for the environment, and have learned to make use of natural resources to improve livelihoods and ensure that the land will continue to provide for future generations.

Careful resource management has ensured an end to food insecurity

The hills and highlands of North-east India are covered in lush vegetation and inhabited by indigenous tribal peoples. The area is famed as a biodiversity ‘hot spot’. Yet the inhabitants of this beautiful, remote region live in extreme poverty – isolated from markets and other services – and the resources they depend on are becoming increasingly degraded.

“Until 2000, people in the area lived hand to mouth,” says Francis Enghee, tribal leader of Mujong village in the district of Karbi Anglong in Assam. “The daily wage was half a kilo of rice. There wasn’t a single family in the village whose rice production would last them through the year, and everyone was forced to borrow maize from neighbouring communities. There was no question of storing rice for the lean period; villagers sold surplus produce to cover daily needs such as salt, kerosene and cloth. Cash crop production was unheard of.”

When the rice ran out, people went hungry. “I know all about food security,” says Mitharam Maslai, a farmer from Khwarakai village. “I still remember the days when we ate only pumpkin and bamboo shoots every year for two to three weeks because we had run out of rice. There were other families like us.”

Better use of land for better lives

Bee-keeping has become a popular way of using forests sustainably

The IFAD-funded North Eastern Region Community Resource Management Project for Upland Areas (NERCORMP) helped reorganize land use and resource management in six districts across the states of Meghalaya, Manipur and Assam. It has improved productivity and ensured the sustainability of farming and harvesting practices, and more than 230,000 rural people in the project area have seen dramatic improvements in their living conditions. They now have substantially higher incomes and regular, more nutritious meals, and their children are healthier and better educated. The project closed in September 2008 but the benefits continue.

“Now we have enough food year round,” says Maslai. “Just last year, I made 15,000 rupees (US$357) selling 1.5 tonnes of chillies, in addition to growing vegetables and raising cattle.”

Traditionally, farmers across the north-eastern region, especially the poorest, practice a system known as jhum. This involves clearing and burning new land for cultivation every few years, then moving on to allow the land to lie fallow. In moderation, this is a sustainable system, but increasingly large-scale jhum cultivation has not only failed to meet yearly food requirements, but has put pressure on fragile and finite natural resources.

The project introduced more-sustainable land management that preserves the ecological balance of the region and creates better livelihood options for poor farmers. Protected areas have been created, such as wildlife and fish sanctuaries, and timber and forest reserves. They are now owned and managed by the communities. Terracing has been introduced, allowing farmers to grow cash crops without the need for jhum cultivation or forest exploitation. Villagers have seen an improvement in productivity thanks to extension services and to training in better, more sustainable farming techniques for soil and water conservation and crop diversification.

With less pressure for food, communities no longer need to strip the forests of their valuable resources.

Ownership and management

Cash-crop production is a new and lucrative venture for villagers

“The most important aspect of this project is that it has given people the capacity to plan and manage their own resources and their own prospects,” says Mattia Prayer Galletti, IFAD country programme manager for India. “This makes the project’s interventions truly sustainable for the future.”

Land management strategies are underpinned by grass-roots organizations, such as the natural resources management groups (NaRMGs) promoted under the project to undertake activities in community infrastructure, conservation and natural resource management. These groups also help guide project interventions.

There has already been a marked increase in environmental consciousness among the rural population. Communities have adopted strict regulations to protect the communal forest reserves and their biodiversity. Today, a total of 1,860 km2 of lush green reserves spread across all six of the project districts. Local wildlife is returning to newly reforested areas, and for the first time in many years, villagers are enjoying fish from local rivers – now that they have stopped using poisons and electrical appliances for fishing.

The area under jhum has been reduced by 50 per cent, fallow periods are longer and newly planted trees help bind the soil. People are not only eating more balanced diets all year round, but are also earning additional income from improved, more-sustainable farming methods and creating small businesses derived from forest resources, such as crafts, bee-keeping and silk production.

A new entrepreneurial spirit

The grass-roots organizations have fostered an entrepreneurial spirit. A range of on- and off-farm income-generating activities now exist, thanks to revolving funds for microcredit created within the NaRMGs and self-help groups (SHGs).

These self help groups are for women only. They have helped promote credit and savings and various small enterprises, such as kitchen gardens, pig- and poultry-raising and, importantly, village grocery shops. By linking banks with the self help groups, the project has facilitated the availability of credit. Banks, in turn, have been keen to extend finance to rural communities as a result of the success of these groups.

Members of the Atur village self help group, in Karbi Anglong district, Assam, began by collecting and selling firewood. When they had raised enough funds, they set up a weaving centre and received training in how to produce commercial handloom goods. Now, in addition to selling their own handicrafts, they also offer weaving classes to other women and have ventured into fruit-processing activities, producing jams, juices and pickles. Amphu Timungpi is a member of this dynamic group. “My husband used to keep all my earnings,” she says, “but now that he sees the benefit of the group, he gives me full support. He even drops me at group meetings and hands over his own earnings to save at the bank.”

To support these growing enterprises, NERCORMP has trained young men and women from the villages to become marketing professionals. These self-employed business agents store produce and transport it to larger towns, earning commissions from the villagers when they sell the produce to wholesalers. This innovation has allowed niche markets to evolve and has helped forge strong links between producers and wider markets. Processing and value chain development are beginning to take off. Local products such as honey, pickles and decorative candles are increasingly finding their way onto the shelves of some of the bigger stores in the region.

There have been considerable benefits for everyone in the project area. Maternal and infant mortality rates, once higher than the national average, have declined considerably. More children are enrolled in school. Women, in particular, benefit from their new empowerment – not just because they have better incomes, but because they have also acquired new status in their communities and are participating fully in decision-making at the group and village levels. With the extra income earned through project interventions, poor people are beginning to buy their own plots of land, securing food production for the future.

Sharing and replicating the NERCORMP experience

Now that the project has closed, steps are being taken to replicate and merge this highly successful example of grass-roots, sustainable development into a much broader project in the north-eastern region.

Source: IFAD