Nehemiah Rong
Early morning women cook food. After food, everyone proceed to field for rice cultivation or jhuming. Everyone whether carrying firewood or other come home, prepare food, dine together and sleep. That is a way of live of yesteryears Naga Community. Agriculture is the main occupation. Rice is the staple food. Even beer is brewed from rice. Rice becomes a food as well as a drink for them.
Usage of machinery was unheard of. With hands they plough, plant rice, pluck the weeds and harvest with sickle, carry rice on backs to their barns. Dry paddy field and wetland cultivation or terracing was practiced. Every family has its own land, never poor enough to be a beggar and never rich to be millionaire. No suicide stories of farmers out of frustration. Natural calamities came; community plunged in to help. Self sufficient in one way but not very well established in the other.
No one produce in large quantity of particular products. Everyone produce little bit of everything. A family cultivates rice and vegetables etc. Naturally there is no selling and buying system in the circuit of economy. Barter system prevailed. Those were the pre-modern days. Hard work keeps economy survives and sustains.
In Senapati District, farmers still continue to grow rice for family consumption. Though some areas found nearer to NH-39 are more advanced but those villages living in far flung remote places are not better of as pre-modern times in the field of cultivation and farming. Such villagers still practice traditional way of farming and cultivation. Here an attempt has been made to bring out some ideas, opinions and some analytical points for far people to come to a conscious outlook and awareness do things better as our farmers are still caught up between modern and traditional.
R.Thekho, AAO(Agri) of Senapati roughly analyzed the economic profitability of rice cultivation in his article Passion Fruit: The right economic fruit crop of Senapati district (Senapati District News Bulletin 2006). He analyzes thus, It is observed that cultivating a paddy field which give a total yield of 60 tins would require 113 man days (@Rs.70/manday)+ input costs such as ploughing of land (by animal drawn or mechanical operated). Cost of seed, fertilizers & manure would cost Rs.1350 approximately. Thus, production cost for 60 tins of rice is counted as Rs.70x113=Rs.7910+Rs.1350=Rs.9260. So, then, what would be the value for 60 tins of rice? Rice cultivation should not be ignored but it is advisable that rice should not be grown as an income oriented crop. It is noteworthy that our District is the home of horticultural crops our prosperity lies in it.
Per tin of rice cost Rs.70-80/-. Counting on the highest value of Rs.80 per tin, 60 tins of rice will be Rs.80x60=4800/-. If the production cost of 60 tins of rice is Rs.9260 and the selling cost of 60 tins of rice is Rs.4800 then there is a deficit of Rs.4460/-. It makes much sense when Johnson Raih, a theologian said that our farmers are living a deficit life when comes to cultivating rice. He also pointed out there is a need to control over the local market by the local people themselves in order to strengthen our economic life. He shared that instead of letting the outsiders run tea stall, barber shop, shoe polishing job, the local youth must take up such challenges in order to be economically independent.
While sharing the burden of the farmers particularly in Senapati District, Mr.Th.Stephen, a young graduate, an unemployed youth has this to say. He said that our farmers are hard working. They work whole year in a field cultivating rice without getting much monetary income throughout the year so there must be a shift from only cultivating rice to other horticultural or allied activities which can face them better income in a year. He is a passion fruit grower. He said he had invested much in that and he is not sure whether he will be able to succeed but he wanted to do something for the farmers. He being brought from a village better understands the problems of the farmers as compare to his counterpart students living in towns/cities.
The fact of the matter when come to agriculture and its allied products in case of farmers in Senapati is that the cost of production is high where the market value is low as most of the local farmers produce their products without using any chemical fertilizers or pesticides. Speaking in the health perspective the outside products are health hazardous than those locally available products. So selling the purely organic product and chemically contaminated product at the same prize is a lost for the local growers/farmers.
APJ Abdul Kalam and Y.S.Rajan in their book Mission India, pointed out thus when come to using chemical fertilizers, as chemical fertilizers are often expensive and polluting, we can look at using organic fertilizers. Biotechnology can help in creating these. Similarly pesticide usage can be minimized through biological control of pests. Therefore, it is called for that the local products and the outside products (chemical fertilizers product and organic product) must be differentiated and thus price be accordingly fixed with adding higher value to the organic ones as they are harmless to health. It demands of peoples active participation with the proper guidance from the social institutions like NGOs, Academicians and Social Workers etc.
Mentioned may be made here that many villages in Senapati District, traditionally raise cattle more particularly cows and buffalos, they are let loose when the paddy harvest is over. As the consequence of which the farmers practicing farms like cabbage, passion fruit, potato etc. have to make fencing. The cost of fencing is high and labour intensive. A farmer expressing his displeasure says that the traditional way of rearing cattle by letting them loose must be changed by either herding the cattle all through out the year or keeping other species other than local breed. The point to note here is that the cows in most of the villages are raised for meat and dung purpose only. Many people share similar opinion that the cattle be raised in more modern way than a primitive way as the later affect the whole circle of economy from destroying the farm land to natural vegetations like bamboo shoots, cane shoots, young saplings, wild vegetables etc to agriculture and its allied activities.
Modern methodology or technology does not shed the light in these interior regions/villages for so long time. The India country had gone successfully first green revolution (1967 to 1978) and now entering into second green revolution however, this part of the world is still new to what green revolution is. Usages of machineries are very rare off. Chemical fertilizers are hardly used. Therefore, to come to equal footing with other farmers with the rest of world becomes unimaginable. However slow the pace may be there need of replacing the traditional with modern. Again quoting from the book Mission India, the authors write, The traditional image of the Indian farmer is that he is poor and uneducated. He has no access to the new developments in farming; he may even unaware that there are any new developments. This traditional image is no longer true. With so many means of communication available, it is not longer a hard task to disseminate information that will help the farmer to make his work productive and remunerative.
The shift of theoretical knowledge to the fields, the fields experiences to the laboratory, from laboratory to the fields can only play and effective role in transforming the traditional way of farming. Shifting from cultivating only staple food like rice to the cash crops, horticulture and other activities, which are locally available and technologically feasible, become mandatory. The know-how of proper food processing and packaging, storage system demands of the young minds to foster, carter and go ahead. One thing to note in oder to be in the modern market is that instead of cultivating little bit of everything, one needs to cultivate a particular thing in very large scale be it potato, ginger, cabbage or passion fruit in order to find better sale. The traditional practice of barter system must be done away with buying and selling system. As for instance, the Exotic Juice Limited Mao, can procure any amount of passion fruit from the passion fruit growers. In that case a farmer instead of cultivating ginger, passion fruit, cabbage, he can solely focused on passion fruit alone. However, while saying that, when the risks are involved who will rescue the farmers/growers? Some opined that if the passion fruits failed or destroyed by cattle’s or something like that happened then where is the security of the people? To that end imparting the proper knowledge of risk involved in investment, crop protection pre-harvest and post- harvest profit and money to invest and scope of profit making become so mandatory.
In a recently held North East Agri-Expo 2006 at Old sugarcane nursery farm Sharad Pawar Minister of Agriculture emphasized the need of using the latest technology, modern agricultural practices, agro-processing and marketing, crop diversification in order to speed up the second green revolution. As per the media reports many Investors are keeping an eye of the NE Region for investment.
Notwithstanding of much talk on modern technology, the challenge is that the farmers are still caught up between the traditional and modern. Introducing modern technology may demand time, resources-human and materials, massive awareness campaign and propagating the ideas to the grass root level. It also demands the active participation of the people, NGOs, states agencies, private investors, the farmers, researchers in the field to come together to share the knowledge, hardships, defects, etc. As long as we remain traditional we may not see the light of modernity in the field of agriculture. However, with introduction of modern technology enough care should be taken to see that people are not affected with drastic change. The point here is living lifestyle is modern yet the way of cultivating and income generating is still traditional. Bows and arrows cannot be matched with missiles and machine guns. Likewise, hoes and sickles cannot compete with tractors and thrashers. At the end how to properly reach out to the farmers and make them known the modern technology and making them adapt to it as they are still struggling with traditional and modern become a challenge for all.
