By - Moa Jamir
The Nagaland-specific findings from the 77th Round of the National Sample Survey (NSS), recently made public by the Department of Economics and Statistics, offer vital yet sobering policy insights into the state’s rural landscape.
While the statistic that 66.25% of rural households are agricultural may suggest agrarian strength, a closer look reveals a far more complex and fragile landscape, shaped, among others by fragmented holdings, income vulnerability, and other related dynamics.
According to the report, a striking 73.82% of rural households (1,73,700 out of 2,35,300) possess less than 1 hectare of land, most within the 0.40–1.00-hectare range. Larger landholdings, especially those exceeding 10 hectares, are virtually absent. While such patterns mirror national trends in smallholder farming, Nagaland’s situation is uniquely complicated by its customary landholding system, rooted in tribal and clan-based ownership. Such ground reality is a structural obstacle to land-based agricultural reforms, often recommended for fragmented land holdings.
Accordingly, Nagaland cannot adopt agricultural models imported from other states and the policy makers must sought alternative measures reflecting the agricultural landscape. The approach must be contextual and creative, respecting customary ownership while improving land use efficiency. Possible paths include community-level mechanisation, voluntary land pooling, or cluster farming models where resources and decisions are coordinated without altering legal ownership. These measures could help smallholders overcome scale limitations without undermining traditional rights.
The continued prevalence of jhum cultivation, covering around 40% of operational land use, further highlights the state’s complex agricultural identity. While jhum remains culturally embedded and ecologically adapted to hill terrain, it faces increasing pressure from government policies promoting settled agriculture and from environmental sustainability concerns.
The status of the agricultural households becomes even more apparent when examining income patterns. Although the average monthly income per household in rural Nagaland stands at Rs 12,971, significantly higher than the national average of Rs 10,21, the survey reveals that over Rs 7,352 of this comes from wage labour rather than farming.
Nationally, wage income among agricultural households averages Rs 4063. This may indicate either higher wages or a greater dependence on non-farm labour in Nagaland, with the latter appearing more likely.This heavy reliance on off-farm work may also reflects the growing insufficiency of agriculture as a sustainable livelihood.
Crop cultivation, in particular, appears increasingly unviable. Once paid-out and imputed costs are factored in nearly Rs 9,900 per month on average, the net returns are minimal, if not negative, for many. Animal farming offers somewhat better margins, but only as a supplementary income source.
Amid these longstanding challenges, an unsettling trend is also reshaping the rural landscape, if not the state as a whole. A growing number of affluent individuals, including politicians, bureaucrats, and private entrepreneurs, are informally acquiring or controlling larger parcels of land, particularly in areas suitable for high-value cash crops.
It remains unclear whether these acquisitions are officially recorded or reflected in the survey data. While such developments may boost productivity in isolated patches, they raise serious concerns about equity and informal land alienation, further challenging an already fragmented pattern of small landholdings. In this context, the absence of any reported landholdings above 10 hectares in the NSS survey is also curious.
Nonetheless, the NSS data presents a holistic picture of the layered reality of rural Nagaland. With one-third of the population still dependent on the agricultural sector, the need for sustainable and profitable agriculture and allied activities remains critical for the state. This calls for a shift from rhetorical commitments to pragmatic, equity-driven policy interventions.
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