What is jhum cultivation? Jhum cultivation is basically a traditional shifting cultivation method. Jhum cultivation has been practiced by the native communities and Bengalis in the Chittagong hill tracts in Bangladesh and nearby areas in Nagaland, Mizoram, and Arunachal Pradesh for many years.
People want to know what is jhum cultivation, and its method, and they also consider which crops are sown in Jhum cultivation. Well, we will describe the entire information about this cultivation.
This traditional shifting farming method referred to as slash and burn agriculture is of crop growing practice. This method applies to clearing the land of trees and other vegetation, burning it, and then cultivating it for some years.
What Is Jhum Cultivation?
Jhum cultivation is a traditional shifting farming method that is mostly practiced in the southern states of India. In this agricultural system, there you can see that a farming community slashes secondary forests on a planned location, burns the slash, and at the last cultivates the land for a set number of years.
The land has gone unused and by repeating the process till they return back to the starting point, the farming residents move to the next location.
Jhum Crop Pattern:
In the Jhum farming method, first small holes are made throughout the field and a mixture of different crop seeds is placed in them. Therefore, cultivators adopt mixed cropping where they grow food grains, vegetables, and cash crops.
Food grains like rice, maize, and millet are the major crops. Most of the cash crops like linseed, sesame, cotton, rapeseeds, and jute are grown in Jhum cultivation.
Therefore, potato, ginger, pumpkins, chilis, cucumbers, beans, onions, and other various vegetables are grown in the Jhum field. Also, tobacco is widely grown by this type of farming method. And all the crops are sold in huge bordering markets.
How Does The Jhum Cultivation Function?
Basically, the Jhum farming method has been defined as an economy. The main significance is the rotation of fields rather than the rotation of crops. This type of farming system can cause vast damage to the atmosphere.
Human is the only key factor due to the absence of draught animals and covering when the double sticks are being used followed by a small period of occupancy alternating with a long fallow period. Then, after two or three years, the fields are abandoned and the cultivators shift to another clearing place, which clarifies why this farming method is well-known for shifting cultivation.
Therefore, the Jhuming technique of land and forest resource utilization. This type of farming system describes a complicated connection between ecology, economy, and a society of a territory.
If the crops are not good in any season, the cultivators keep pigs and swine which feed on the grains and vegetable wastes. As a buffer stock, the pig’s functions are used during the period of absence.
The Seasons Of Sowing & Harvesting Crops:
In the Jhum cultivation, seeds are sown after the first rain in April. Seeds are sowed by a board blade knife commonly known as Dao. cultivators used the Dao to make small holes throughout the field and then they placed a mixture of different crop seeds in them.
Except in some cases, very little weeding is taken out when considering it essential to provide protection against damages caused by wild birds and animals.
However, the crops are harvested in series as they mature between July and December. Jhuming process improves soil erosion and finishes fertility.
Stages In Jhum Cultivation:
The Jhum cultivation and agricultural processes are characterized by the following stages almost all over the tropical world, especially in the hilly tracts of the Northeastern region of India.
- Selecting the forested hilly land.
- Cutting down the jungle to clear the forest tract.
- Dried forest wood gets burned into the ashes.
- Rejection & adoration
- Sowing crop seeds after dibbling
- The crops and weeding protection
- Thrashing & harvesting
- Fests & festivity
Following Process In Jhum Cultivation:
The entire community in some tribes is all-around liable for the clearing of the part of the land that fetches fixed while in other tribes cutting of trees is made by the individual family to whom the land has been allocated regarding the measure and the workforce in the family.
Therefore, the typical method requires the selection of a plot near a hilly side or a jungle. The preference of the land is done in December and January by the cultivators. The soil fertility is selected by the surface and color of the soil.
The cultivators take care of that fire if the fire should not outspread into the forest during the lighting up of the dried growths. Whatever’s partly burnt or unburnt is collected all in one place for the entire burning.
Jhum Cultivation Cycle:
Reasons for influencing the Jhum cultivation cycle are the pressure of population, nature, the texture of the soil, the average annual rainfall, and the density of forests. Therefore, the high-density population areas have shorter Jhum cultivation cycles under 5 to 10 years and the sparse population areas have usually longer Jhum cultivation cycles under 15 to 25 years. Also, the period of cropping varies from tribe to tribe.
Crop Process:
The Jhum cultivation systems are done in an encircling process by mixing crop seeds that are planted in the first year of the season of kharif ki fasal. In the next year of the Kharif season, low-quality short-duration cereals are planted which are mixed with beans and other vegetables.
Crop Power:
Knowing what is jhum cultivation, there you will learn one thing, almost six lakh tribal families are dependent on Jhum cultivation for their life span in the Northeast and this region is the largest area under Jhum cultivation in India. About 3 million hectares are under cultivation from the whole area of 33 million hectares and where 2,6 mullion hectares are under Jhum cultivation.
Result:
Here the greatest requirement of shifting is clearing the jungles. Therefore, cutting down trees improve huge soil erosion and which can cause the flexibility of rainfall that can direct to floods or droughts.
However, the overall impact can result in soil fertility while the entire ecosystem can suffer and lose its strength if the Jhumming is not properly carried out in a balanced mode.
The terrain, the climate of their region, their needs, their foods, their habits, and their self-strength all depend on their Jhumming. But keep in mind that the same culture can destroy the biomass and the biodiversity of our planet where a huge portion of tropical forests around (10 million) are being annually destroyed.
Jhum Cultivation & Its Practised Areas:
Jhum cultivation varies by different names in different regions of the world. But basically, Jhum cultivation is known as slash and burn agriculture. This type of farming system is termed Caingin in the Philippines, ladang in Indonesia, Roka in Brazil, Dhabi & Vigna in Odisha, Podu in Andhra Pradesh, in Southeastern Rajsthan, Jhum in the Northeast, Tavi in Madagascar, Taungya in Myanmar, Tamarai in Thailand and Chena in Sri Lanka. Also, it is practiced in the highlands of southwest China, Manchuria, and Korea.
Conclusion:
So, hope you learn what is jhum cultivation and all the information related to the topic. Therefore, one of the essential benefits of Jhum cultivation is that the only intakes needed are labor and antique seeds from the earlier harvest.
And this thing keeps the neighborhoods self-strength and it also enables the communities to adjust to the lack of accordance with the urban supermarkets especially due to environmental hazards.