Environment
An indigenous community
in Meghalaya offers lessons in climate resilience
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The UN’s Food and Agricultural
Organisation (FAO) report on autochthonal People’s Food Systems co-published by
Food and Agriculture Organization and also the Alliance of Bioversity
International, and CIAT includes the profiles of eight autochthonal Peoples
food systems from round the world, as well as Uttarakhand and Meghalaya in
India.
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In Nongtraw (Meghalaya), a village only
inhabited by the Khasi, various
traditional food systems supported by jhum (shifting cultivation), home
gardens, forest and water bodies, shying faraway from artificial chemicals in
food production.
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It is predicated on community-led
landscape management practices, regulated by native governance.
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Nongtraw lies on the mid-slope of a deep
gorge within the Cherrapunji region, a extremely compound plateau on the
southern margins of the Meghalaya plateau.
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Factors like the emergence of money crop
production (broom grass), the impact of India’s public distribution system on
the native subsistence system and overreliance on market-based merchandise are
weakening the food system’s resilience.
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Much just like the Khasis in Nongtraw,
the SauriaPaharias of Jharkhand, a very vulnerable tribal} group (PVTG), who
practice Kurwa farming (a style of shifting agriculture in forests, in
conjunction with farming in agricultural lands) have switched to growing rice
in place of drought-resistant millets due to agricultural interventions that in
the main targeted on yields.
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Research priorities on autochthonic food
systems ought to incorporate systematic documentation of a large type of
autochthonal foods known to the
indigenous communities, their contribution to food security and dietary
diversity.
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