Scientists, academicians, bureaucrats, and social workers across Northeast India met at Guwahati, Assam to discuss sustainable agriculture and food sovereignty of the region. Representatives from different organization shared their experiences from different programmes across Northeast India that could contribute towards the consultation objective of making Northeast a sustainable and food sovereign region.

A one-and-a-half-day regional consultation was hosted by Caritas India from 23 and 24 October 2018 to discuss the various sustainable agricultural practices and addressing the food sovereignty challenges.

One of the interesting things about food sovereignty is that it gives the right to people for producing, distributing, and consuming food and control the mechanisms and policies of food production and distribution, rather than the corporations and market institutions.

“One billion people in the world are hungry and two billion people are obese”, pointed Arch Bishop John Moolachira, the chief guest of the programme. Expressing his concern, that the present scenario, farmers are deprived of schemes and services and getting exploited.

Defining the food sovereignty, Rajesh Upadhyay, HoD – Programmes of Caritas India shared that it is the rights of people on their own food, the importance of indigenous seeds and use of locally available resources to promote the sustainability. He mentioned the zero-budget agricultural system which reduces the input cost and gives more profit to farmers. “In the current scenario, farmers are dependent on hybrid seeds and pesticides where food becomes poisonous and soil fertility is severely compromised” he added.

Shifting cultivation being the part and parcel of tribal culture, Mr. Dollo, Director, Natural Resources, North Eastern Region Community Resource Management Project (NERCORMP) shared about the diversification of Jhum cultivation in Northeast India, revival of wild edible plants, introduction of home garden, terrace field, cash crop and agro-forestry, exchange of seeds, preservation and conservation of indigenous seeds. Mr. Dollo said very clearly that we cannot wean away farmers from doing jhum. He explained how NERCORMP has able to modify jhum and trying to make it into a sustainable practice by introducing cash crops along with the food crops.  He also mentioned that NERCORMP is working in the states of Assam, Meghalaya, Manipur and Arunachal Pradesh covering 1,18,776 HHs in 2532 villages.

Sustainable agriculture in the northeast can be achieved by promoting strip cropping in the sloppy areas (especially in the Northeast). Dr. Haridas VR, Team Leader, CAAFS, Caritas India emphasized to capacitate farmers for integrated farming to achieve a better result. He warned against the consumption of pesticide-laden fruits that people buy from the market. Dr. Haridas pointed out that the nitrous oxides emitted by Fertilizers are 300 times more damaging than CO2 in contributing to GHG emissions. He articulated well the basic definitions of food sovereignty and food security for a common understanding of all. He further characterized food sovereignty in different sectors. He also talked about Integrated Family Farming (IFF), strengthening of the community-based organization in terms of small-scale business as a livelihood option. Dr. Haridas stressed the need for mixed and strip cropping and urged to work for the mobilize more and more farmers for integrated and help them with value addition.

SALT (Sloping Agriculture Land Technology) farming method has been promoted, 80% of people are engaged in Agriculture in Mizoram recorded by Fr. Lawrence, ZEP in his presentation. Fr Lawrence also spoke about the uniqueness of the Mizos in Jhum cultivation.

Mr. Pius Ranee from North East Slow Food and Agrobiodiversity Society (NESFAS) while presenting his paper shared that 370 million indigenous food have been identified by NESFAS in Northeast and in Meghalaya only 614 food and 317 wild vegetables were recorded. Mr. Pius highlighted that out 3 Lakh plant species found in the world, only 30 thousand are edible and out these 30 thousand, only 4 crops (paddy, wheat, potato, and maize) are mostly consumed by us.

Agriculture Entrepreneur, Mr. Nilam Dutta from Assam shared about creating seed villages through seed nursery, an adopted modern and sustainable techniques like protected cultivation. He focused on seed sovereignty through a collection of indigenous seeds from different parts of Northeast India. He stressed the fact that farmers in the region should have control over their own seeds. He spoke about the agricultural biodiversity that is observed well in Northeast India.  Mr. Dutta through his concerted efforts is promoting organic farming and farmers cooperatives in the state of Assam.

Farmers from all the seven states exhibited indigenous seeds during the consultation to present the wide variety of traditional food available in Northeast India.

The associate professor from Pandu College Guwahati, Dr. P Medhi in his presentation focused on Crop Diversity in Northeast India. He shared about sustainable agriculture, conservation of natural resources, green Revolution modern technological developments to enhance the productivity of crops. He shared that there is a need for a new approach and balance in the field of agriculture, aquaculture and animal husbandry. Dr. Medhi also focussed on the six pillars of food sovereignty pointing out that food sovereignty focuses on Food for People, Values Food Providers, Localises Food Systems, Puts Control Locally, Builds Knowledge and Skills & Works with Nature. He was vociferous against the use of GM crops in NE and warned about its future implications. According to him the need of the hour is sustainable agriculture/organic farming, collection and conservation of indigenous crop landraces & food sovereignty.

Dr. Pawan Kumar Kaushik, Senior Scientist, Forest Research Centre for Livelihood Extension (FRCLE) shared his knowledge different usage of bamboo and how it could be a tool for the development sector. He illustrated methods of a very low-cost method of treatment of bamboo and went along showing the usefulness of treated bamboo in the construction of houses. The equipment used for such treatment is a product of FRCLE and now is being given out to the farmers. These houses could be easily affordable for the poor and can last for nearly 70 years without any maintenance. Besides such houses are earthquake resilient. He pointed out good reasons for taking up Nursery activities Bamboo Propagation sighting factors like Conservation, Diversity Management & Livelihood Development. Dr. Kaushik said that his organisation is scientifically multiplying 17 indigenous species of Bamboos found in NE. Dr. Kaushik showed how he is promoting community livelihood nurseries through the use of bamboos. He urged to CBOs to encourage farmers to take up bamboo as a source of livelihood and added that he is open to provide trainings on bamboos. He also showed how well bamboos could be utilized to make vermicompost tanks and a series of day to day materials like paint brushes, furniture, lamp shades, cups, plates, and dishes etc. He pointed out that he has replaced plastic bags used in the nurseries of his demonstration plots with bamboo canisters thus making it plastic free and environment-friendly.

Fr. Sunny, Director of BAKDIL spoke out of his 25 years of experience in the Garo hills. He highlighted on the types of agricultural systems in Garo Hills and focused mainly on the dynamics of Jhum. He pointed out the different types of agricultural practices in the Garo Hills of Meghalaya.

Caritas India FARM Northeast coordinators Ms. Regina Kithan, Dipa Das and Aibimis Rani shared about the Indigenous Seeds and Medicinal plant resources of North East India under the FARM II programme. Farmers from the region also shared their experiences, learnings and knowledge on farming and practices from the FARM Northeast programme. FARM Northeast programme of Caritas India has able to bring back 166 varieties of indigenous seeds back to cultivation while working towards food sovereignty. The programme is able to identify 190 traditional healers and 530 herbal plants in the region. The unique part of the programme is the introduction of traditional medicinal schools in rural areas of NE. These schools are helping the communities to keep their age-old practices intact.

Mr. Rajesh, HoD summed up the consultation by adding that to Bring connectivity between rural farmers, cultivator and urban consumers, the need is of maximizing the use of local resources and linking farmers with the line agencies to build up their own companies. Farmer should be self-sustainable in terms of seeds, manure, plant production, material and fodder. To solve the problems of farmers, proper planning, large scale production, procurement, processing, packing and marketing is required.

Finally, Mr. Rajesh discussed and shared in length about Caritas India’s vision in bringing in the organization working in the sector under one roof. He solicited names of such organizations working in NE India from the participants. The final agenda for the day was a request to the participants by Mr. Rajesh to work in groups on two basic points and make presentations thereby. The two points were Common/ Sustainable Agenda and strengthen a common platform process in NE India for Sustainable Agriculture for Sovereignty. The programme ended with a vote of thanks from Prabal Sen.