SHIFTING CULTIVATION IN MANIPUR: LAND, LABOUR AND ENVIRONMENT

Shifting cultivation is the main source of livelihood system in the hill areas of Manipur, one of the north-eastern States in India. It is widely prevalent due to lack of alternative farm employment. Its inputs are crude and traditional in nature resulting in subsistence income. Shifting cultivation is labour-intensive and has a traditional character. Empirical evidence shows that rapid population growth has increased the use of forest land for shifting cultivation in Manipur. The system’s cycle has substantially declined due to population pressure on land thereby reducing the productivity. It has resulted in environmental degradation and problems of forest land re-vegetation. It has also led to a huge loss of forest resources every year. Its production is mostly organic due to sparingly use of inorganic fertilisers. Institutional changes in the form of private ownership of land have resulted in commercialisation of forest products like timber and firewood. Land use and forest laws need to be strengthened to safeguard and protect forest land. Ensuring food security and restructuring of land ownership system from community to private may reduce the practice of shifting cultivation and conserve forest cover.


Introduction
Shifting cultivation, commonly known as jhumming, is largely confined to the North Eastern Region (NER) of India (Report of Task Force on Shifting Cultivation, Ministry of Agriculture, 1983). Ministry of Agriculture (1983), as cited in the Forest Survey of India (FSI) (1987)estimated that shifting cultivation was life for a large number of indigenous ethnic groups. Ministry of Development of North Eastern Region (MODONER) and North East Council (NEC) in North Eastern Region's Vision 2020 published in 2008 remarked that shifting cultivation is widely practised in the hills by the ethnic tribal people. Its practice is contentious due to its harmful environmental costs. It is commonly practised in the hill areas of Manipur, one of the north-eastern States of India. It is "operative chiefly in the regions where more technologically advanced systems of agriculture have not become economically or culturally possible or in regions where the land has not yet been appropriated by people with greater political or cultural power" (Sachchidananda, 1989:5). Nevertheless, it leads to loss of forest cover causing land degradation and deforestation that is one of the forest issues in Manipur.
People living in hill areas of the State are recognised as Scheduled Tribes (STs) by the Government of India. In 2011, 36.44 per cent of the total 2.6 million people of Manipur lived in the five hill districts. STs comprise 35.12 per cent of the State population.They largely practise shifting cultivation as the permanent terrace cultivation is limited in the foothills. Shifting cultivation is a labour-intensive mode of agricultural activity. It has a traditional characteristic that is similarly stretched by Mellor (1962) concerning traditional agriculture where land and labour are highly complementary to each other. Productivity is low, multi-cropping method is adopted and use of human labour is the main input and labour is reciprocal in nature under the system (Gupta, 2006). MODONER and NEC (2008) also noted that the productivity under shifting cultivation is low. According to FSI (2011), the loss of forest cover was by 190 km 2 during December 2006/January 2007 to January/ February 2009 (satellite data) in Manipur. Such loss in the forest cover is mainly because of extensive practice of shifting cultivation (FSI, 1987(FSI, , 1995(FSI, , 2005(FSI, , 2011(FSI, and 2013.Shifting cultivation contributed to soil erosion, deforestation and destabilisation of the ecology (FSI, 1987 andMODONER andNEC, 2008). However, under it the use of chemical fertilisers and pesticides is insignificant (Kerkhoff and Sharma, 2006). Directorate of Economics and Statistics (2014) data on fertiliser usage in the hills of Manipur show an insignificant amount, implying organic agricultural production under shifting cultivation. With this backdrop the present paper 1 evaluates the changing patterns of shifting cultivation under the forest environment and growing labour force in the hills of Manipur. It also studies the patterns and trends of land use, forest cover, agriculture, forest income and agricultural productivity with special reference to shifting cultivation in recent times.

Methodology
The paper evaluates the changing patterns of shifting cultivation arising due to population growth and development linking it with the environmental issues in the hills of Manipur in recent decades, using secondary data of agricultural statistics, crop estimation survey and statistical abstracts published by the Directorate of Economics and Statistics (DES), Government of Manipur, Forest Survey of India (FSI) and Population Census.On the basis of the practice of shifting cultivation the hill districts of Manipur are classified into hill areas covering the districts of Senapati, Tamenglong, Chandel, Churachandpur and Ukhrul; and the valley areas consisting of the districts of Imphal East, Imphal West, Thoubal and Bishnupur. The study examines the status, type and density of forest cover emphasising on the hill areas. It assesses the contribution of agriculture and forestry and logging, that affects the forest cover largely by the system of shifting cultivation, in the gross state domestic product (at constant prices). Moreover, the land use pattern of Manipur is analysed in comparison with the national pattern. Next, the system of shifting cultivation is elaborated. It is followed by an examination of the nature and extent of practice of shifting cultivation by considering the area under rice classified by types (shifting or permanent including terrace) of cultivation particularly in hill areas. Further, the share of combined cultivators and agricultural labourers as workers in agriculture is briefly analysed along with an examination of extent of economic participation of population measured by Workers' Population Ratio (WPR). Number of shifting cultivators is being estimated based on census data on agricultural workers due to non-availability of data on it. The number and size of shifting cultivators in the hills is estimated by assuming 60 per cent of the agricultural workers (cultivators and agricultural labourers) as shifting cultivators since the system is more labour-intensive than permanent/terrace cultivation. It further, evaluates the shifting cultivation environment emphasising on the cycle, fertility and productivity of shifting cultivation. The overall agricultural production and yield of Manipur is being examined; later the hill specific agricultural production and yield is analysed in order to assess the difference in productivity in the hills where shifting cultivation is predominant and use of chemical fertilisers is insignificant and the valley that is predominant by stable wet land cultivation using improved seeds and chemical fertilisers.

Land and Forest
About 90 per cent of the total geographical area of Manipur (22327 km 2 ) is located in the hill districts and the rest is in the valleys. Forest cover shows a gradual improvement in the State from below 17,000 to over 17,000 km 2 from 2001 to 2011 despite wide practice of shifting cultivation in the hills. In 2013, the FSI recorded a decline in the forest area by about 100km 2 from the previous record. Moreover, the area of forest cover in the hills, in particular, remains almost unchanged over the recent years. Almost all (98 per cent) forest cover in Manipur is concentrated in the hills.
In terms of the share of forest cover in geographical areas of the State, Manipur ranked 7 th among the Indian States and UTs (FSI, 2013). The forest cover is slightly more than three-fourths of the total geographical area of Journal of Rural Development, Vol. 36, No. 1, January -March : 2017 Manipur. The hills of Manipur (20089 km 2 ) are mostly covered by forest with a whopping share of about 83 per cent in 2013. Forest cover in the hills hovers at this proportion due to an extension of human settlement, developmental activities like road or dam construction besides the practice of shifting cultivation affecting the land rejuvenation and re-vegetation process. In the valleys, forest cover stood at about 16 per cent of the entire geographical area of 2238 km 2 . FSI (2005) defined 'reserved forest' as 'an area so constituted under the provision of the Indian Forest Act or other State Forest Acts having full degree of protection' . In reserved forests all activities are prohibited unless permitted. Protected forest is an area notified under the provisions of the Indian Forest Act or other State Forest Acts having limited degree of protection. In protected forest all activities are permitted unless prohibited. The State's forest is mostly unclassified type of forest with a share of close to 68 per cent of the total forest area. The State's total forest area was 15154 km 2 in 1991. Out of which about 10, 27 and 63 per cent were categorised as reserved, protected and unclassified forest, respectively. It has increased to 17418 km 2 in 2001 and remains unchanged till 2013. Reserved and protected forests' share has declined to 8 and 24 per cent, respectively; however, unclassified forest share grew to 68 per cent in 2013. Data of reserved, protected or unclassified forests figures remains unchanged from 2001 till 2013 which raises a serious question about its authenticity for data users. Nevertheless, the protected forest forms the second largest type of forest with close to one quarter of the entire forest area. The decline of reserved forest is due to land encroachment (Hueiyen News Service, 2011). Same reason could explain the declining share of protected forest. With an increase of population the protected forest that is not well defined and safeguarded is being cleared for human settlement (example: house construction) thereby reducing the protected forest area. The conditions of forest keep on changing due to human intervention. The share of dense forest including very dense and moderately dense forests is always lesser than the open forest. However, the share of dense forest has increased due to the improvement i.e., re-vegetation and afforestation in the open forest. In 1987, just about a quarter of the forest was classified as dense forest and the rest three quarters were in the form of open forest (Table1). After more than two decades in 2013 the share of dense forest has substantially increased to about 40 per cent. The definition for dense forest remains the same in all the years of assessment. The increase of dense forest is largely contributed by the moderately dense forest. The share (and also absolute) of a very dense forest has declined by slightly more than one percentage point in 2013 (4.28 per cent) from 2005 (5.40 per cent). This is largely due to the practice of shifting cultivation especially in the hill areas of Manipur. The degradation of dense forest is due to the practice of shifting cultivation (IBCN,2011). Overall, the size of forest area has gradually declined; as a result, the share of forest cover in the total geographical area has also declined over the years. The decrease in forest cover is due to shifting cultivation practices besides harvesting of short rotational plantations, clearances in encroached areas, biotic pressures, developmental activities and so on and so forth (FSI, 2013). Specific reasons of decrease in the forest cover in Manipur are practice of shifting cultivation and biotic pressure in major parts of the State (FSI, 2013). However, Sastry et al., (2007:28) pointed out that in Manipur like in other north-eastern States "there is no simple relationship between shifting cultivation and forest loss, implying dynamic changes in forest cover due to interacting effects of various factors". Table 2 shows the share of density of forest cover in the hills and valleys of Manipur. The forest cover in the hills was improving during 2001-2005, however, thereafter it declined. The improvement was due to conservation measures such as afforestation activities and participation of locals for better protection measures in plantation and traditional forest areas,etc (FSI, 2013). The combined share of very and moderately dense forest area has increased. However, the share of very dense forest, which is recorded only in the hills, has declined due to shifting cultivation, practised only in hill areas. In the valleys, the share of dense forest is dwindling resulting in rise of open forest over the recent years. Loss of forest is a major environmental concern in the State irrespective of whether degradation or deforestation is mostly taking place in the hills or valleys. Deforestation and degradation of land and forest management challenges such as indigenous people enjoying their traditional or customary rights/privileges on land, lack of institutional support to communities, etc., are major issues of forest in Manipur (Sastry et al.,2007). Moreover, deforestation is caused by expansion of residential area, forest conversion for permanent pasture and agriculture, intensive shifting cultivation, infrastructure expansion, etc., and forest degradation due to selective logging, shifting cultivation, mining, deterioration of regeneration processes, etc. Forest exploitation for shifting cultivation and other forest products is significant in the State. Majority (71 per cent) of the forest products were from timber (teak and others), firewood, charcoal and post and pole and the rest (29 per cent) was from minor forest products such as cane, stone, sand, bamboo, etc., in the total forest production value of `13.

Land Use Pattern
In Manipur, land use is administered through the Manipur Land Revenue and Land Reforms Act, 1960. The Act is applicable in the entire State of Manipur except the hill areas (MLR & LR Act 1960). Land in the hills of Manipur is owned by the community; however, private/ individual land ownership also prevails in certain areas. Usually land is owned by the community through the shifting cultivators; however, gradually private ownership of land has emerged (Maithani, 2005). Sachchidananda (1989:37) wrote that "in most of the hill areas of north-east India, land is owned by the community as a whole. Individual ownership of land recognised in certain areas is usually confined to homestead and settled farm land". Land ownership system differs across ethnic groups and villages in the State. Some ethnic groups or villages follow community, clan or kinship and private or individual land ownership systems. Private land is owned by an individual for housing, permanent cultivation, farming, etc. Community lands are controlled and managed by the villagers as a whole. Community land ownership system could partially be hindering development, investment and adoption of modern technology in shifting cultivation system. Further, lands of tribal people cannot be sold to the non-tribal people. In Manipur, agricultural land is used for various reasons including shifting, terrace and permanent cultivation.DES (2014) ascertained that permanent cultivation is mostly practised in the valley, whereas shifting and terrace cultivation is generally practised in the hills. Forest areas are also clear for temporary land use such as plantations and permanent land use like construction of road or terrace farming. The land classified for different uses in Manipur vis-à-vis India is presented in Table 3. Over 90 per cent of the entire geographical area of land is reported for land utilisation in the State as well as in the country. Out of the total reporting land for utilisation, over 80 per cent is forest land in Manipur against only 23 per cent for India and the remaining is distributed for various other land use classifications. Out of the total reporting area for land utilisation, about 11 per cent was under net area shown in 1996-97 in Manipur. It remains at the same level till 2009-10; however, in 2010-11, it has increased to slightly over 16 per cent, that has reduced the forest area. It indicates that land use pattern is not uniformly distributed across the years. In other words, a change in the forest area is occasionally due to intensity of shifting cultivation. In India, the net area remains high at about 46 per cent. A comparison of the share of net area sown between the State and the country highlights that there is scope to extend agriculture or agricultural land in the State.
In Manipur, lands under permanent pasture and other grazing, lands under miscellaneous tree crops and groves, cultivable wasteland, current fallow lands and fallow lands other than current fallows constituted less than one per cent of the entire reporting land for utilisation. Moreover, about one per cent of the reporting land is not available for cultivation. On the contrary, at the country level these lands constitute about 31 per cent of the total reporting land for utilisation. It portrays that Manipur has a potential in exploiting the forest land prudently for various kinds of land development for sustainable agriculture as well as other suitable developmental activities.
Sustainable agriculture refers to enhancing agricultural food production without destroying the environment (Srinivas, 1996). In the development of sustainable agriculture, the three sustainable development dimensions, namely environmental, economic and social are included and interrelated (Bowler, 2002).  The distribution of households crossclassified by the size of land possessed and cultivated, as per the National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO), is given in Table 4 for Manipur and India for 2009-10 in rural areas. Most of the households in the State, like in India, possessed land of size of less than one hectare. Similar is the case with STs of the State. Landlessness is less evident for STs (16.2 per cent households) when compared to overall (21.6 per cent households) in the State. It is also true for the country. Despite the prevalence of landless households, as much as 24 per cent, against 21 per cent landless ST households of the State they reported to have cultivated, possibly as agricultural labourers or tenants. The share of landless households who have cultivated some land is much greater for the country than the State of Manipur. The share of households who possessed and cultivated land between one and four hectares was considerably larger for STs than overall especially for Manipur. There are not many households who owned and cultivated big land of more than four hectares in Manipur, unlike in India, among all-social groups and STs.

System of Shifting Cultivation
People, categorised as Scheduled Tribes (STs) by the Government of India, living in the hills of Manipur largely depend on land and forest for their livelihood through agriculture, food gathering and hunting. Jhum or "jhoom cultivation" (Gupta, 2000:605) or "shifting cultivation or slash and burn" (Seavoy, 1973:522) or "swidden cultivation" (Eden, 1993:146)

Practice of Shifting Cultivation
Shifting cultivation takes place in an earmarked forest area for cultivation and then the forest is cleared by slashing trees, etc., using traditional tools, then slashed trees are dried and subsequently burnt to enhance soil fertility. It uses traditional and unscientific tools like dagger, sword, axe, hoe, digging, sickle, etc. Earlier, the fallow period between the two shifting cultivation cycles was considerable, for regeneration of vegetations and soil fertility, which has reduced significantly due to the population pressure. The system is practised among the indigenous people. Roy In Manipur, shifting cultivation is prominently practised by the ethnic groups of Nagas, Kukis, Mizos, Zhomis, etc. Few STs also practise terrace cultivation on the slope of the hills. Under the system a land is usually tilled for one year and then allowed to lie fallow for some seven to ten years. The same land is tilled for two or three years. At present under the system land is tilled for a year due to decline in fertility of soil, then keep it fallow for some years. For example in Nagaland, jhum fields are deserted after the first year mainly due to labour constraints and / or decline in soil fertility (Jamir and Lianchawii, 2013). The years of keeping fallow land depend on variation on population pressure in different areas. The "Kukis removed their villages to fresh sites when the land was used, but the Nagas, who showed great attachment to their village sites, would proceed to great distances to cultivate, notwithstanding the labour of carrying back their harvests" (Godden, 1898:7). Nagas burn their field and grow rice, millets, corns, taro potatos and so on. Some fields are terracestyled for growing rice and taros. "Naga cultivation is said to have included rice, pea, several varieties of small grain, Indian corn, yams, chillies, ginger, garlic, pumpkins and other vegetables, and cotton; gardens with sugarcane, almonds and wild raspberries are mentioned for North Kachar" (Godden, 1898:10). Shakespear (1909:371-372) observed that "(Kuki) clans practice jhum cultivation, that is, they fell a piece of jungle and when sufficiently dry, burn it and then dibble in the seed, and seldom cultivate the same piece of land for more than two years in succession." Shimray (2004) has remarked that some Nagas such as Tangkhul, Mao, Zeliangrong and Maring practise both shifting cultivation as well as sedentary terraced cultivation. A large proportion of Naga population is engaged in shifting cultivation. Ramakrishnan (1980) as cited in Shimray (2004) points out that shifting cultivation constituted the earliest form of agriculture and provided the basic needs of man. It also placed him in harmony with nature, of which he was an integral part and on which was dependent for survival.Shifting cultivation is deeply rooted and linked with indigenous ethnic culture (MEF and GBPIHED, 2009). Terraced cultivation is also practised in Naga society but it is confined to the lower gradient of the mountain ranges and to narrow river banks and valleys. Rice is the staple food both in the hills and the valleys of Manipur. Rice continues to dominate acreage of all the crops in the State (DES, 2014). Rice is mainly cultivated under the system of permanent, terrace and jhum (shifting) cultivations. Table 5

Labour in Shifting Cultivation
In an economy with a labour surplus due to population booming and a scarce capital there is a greater tendency of labour absorption in agriculture in general and shifting cultivation in particular in the hill areas. Bhattacharya  shifting cultivation is similar with the labour used for the hill shifting cultivation in Malaysia described by Cramb (1988). In Malaysia, the average labour input per hectare from underbrushing, felling to harvesting of secondary crops and miscellaneous activities (including visiting farm) is 209 days per hectare (Cramb,1988). Similar number of labour days is expected to prevail for Manipur since the labour requirement in shifting cultivation is intensive.
In Manipur, more than half of the population (excluding 0-6 years of age) participated in economic activities, measured by workers' population ratio (WPR), in recent years ( Table 6). The rate of economic participation was greater in the hills by few percentage points than in the valleys. In the hills, employment in agriculture continues to dominate with about 68 per cent in 2011 which declined by about three percentage points from the previous decade. In the valleys the share of agriculturists is less than half of the total employment. The share of agriculturists in both hills, where shifting cultivation is predominant and in valleys, where permanent cultivation dominates, has declined, as people are increasingly employed in non-agriculture sectors. It implies that with an improvement in educational attainment in particular and development in general the level of withdrawal from agricultural activities in order to accommodate non-farm activities is increasing. An individual who has acquired certain level of education has set a goal, aspiration and preference of modern formal or nonagricultural jobs. Yet, due to severe unemployment issues the new labour entrants are pressed in the shifting cultivation. This widens the scope to adopt and practise  A large number of people continue to engage in shifting cultivation in the hills of Manipur (Table 7). It is ever-increasing due to population growth and without sufficient  Kerkhoff and Sharma (2006) emphasised that shifting cultivation is a good system when properly practised using hill and mountain lands, while ensuring conservation of forest, soil and water resources. The system encounters huge obstacles from development and policy aspects. An attempt to change and replace it by different agricultural and horticultural systems has shown a failure. It requires viewing the system in a positive aspect to change shifting cultivation in a sustainable manner. Further, Kerkhoff and Sharma (2006:73) noted that "shifting cultivators have the knowledge and skills to provide many environmental services such as conservation of soil and water, biodiversity and gene pools, and also carbon sequestration". Sachchidananda (1989) accounted that soil depletion and erosion is not greater under shifting cultivation system than other systems of agriculture when both systems are operated efficiently.  figure) censuses, respectively. It is assumed that 60 per cent of the agriculturists are engaged in shifting cultivation since the system is more labour-intensive than the permanent or terrace cultivation system. # Figure (Ninan, 1992). As "population pressure increases, the shading [shifting] cycle is progressively shortened" (Seavoy, 1973:528).

Environment, Farm Inputs and Agriculture Production
The "exponential population growth and shifting cultivation are causally linked to deforestation and environmental degradation" (Jarosz, 1993:366  In Manipur, the overall production of foodgrains has dramatically increased along with an increase in the area of cultivation and more specifically due to the increase in yield ( Table 8). Yield of foodgrains is much greater in the State than at the country level, that is mostly contributed by the permanent wet land cultivation. Interestingly, the per capita foodgrain production has systematically The decline in the cycle of shifting cultivation degrades land and reduces the soil nutrients and soil fertility due to inadequate re-vegetation effects on the agriculture productivity. Literature shows that under shifting cultivation the produce is in diversity ranging from cereals, pulses, tubers to spices. Moreover, the cropping pattern as well as the productivity of crops depend primarily on inputs (seeds, plant protection chemicals and plant nutrients like fertilisers and manures), soils and climatic conditions such as rainfall, temperature, wind, dew, hailstorm, sunshine and radiation (DES, 2007).
A multi-cropping is usually practised under shifting cultivation system from time immemorial to meet the need of household consumption in traditional society. More than a century ago, Godden (1898) remarked that, crops under shifting cultivation, for example Table 9 shows that close to half of the total area under rice is cultivated in the hill areas but the larger share of production is produced in the valley areas. For example, in 2006-07 in the State, about 48 per cent of the total rice cultivated area was in the hills while only 40 per cent of rice was produced in it. Rice production in the hill areas is more than its population composition in the State indicating that hill people are more self-reliant than the Table 9: Area, Production and Yield of Rice, Manipur among the Nagas, included rice, pea, varieties of small grain, corn, yams (taro), spices, vegetables, cotton, etc. Even in the present century a multiple cropping system is being practised under shifting cultivation in Manipur as under any other shifting cultivation in northeast. For example, in Ukhrul district of Manipur, as many as 28 crops including cereals, legumes, tubers, rhizomes, bulbs, spices, vegetables, oilseeds, and others were grown under shifting cultivation (Kerkhoff and Sharma, 2006). The productivity of agriculture in north-eastern States including the hills of Manipur is low. It is due to the practice of shifting cultivation, among other reasons (Mukherji, 2010). Bhattacharya and Nanda (2005) noted that the productivity of shifting cultivation is low where demand for jhum land has increased as a consequence of rapidly increased population.
Productivity declines due to the shortening of jhum cycle whereby it declines the soil fertility.
Jamir and Lianchawii(2013) noted that jhum cultivation is no longer productive in Nagaland, which would be true for Manipur and the produce is mostly for household consumption.
Nevertheless, the produce under shifting cultivation is essentially organic i.e., little or no chemical pesticides or fertilisers are used in it (Kerkhoff and Sharma, 2006 Note: Areas (A): '000 hectares; production (P): '000 tonnes; and yield (Y): kg/hectare. -not available.Author's calculation:%share to total Manipur; and *Per capita rice production. In Manipur, rice production level does not change much over the years. Therefore, present per capita rice production can be computed