Traditional knowledge and indigenous practices still in vogue among rural populace of Garhwal Hills, Uttarakhand, India (original) (raw)

The broad topic of ITK could be defined as experiential knowledge of a community, accumulated over a period of time, which the indigenous people practice in their daily lifestyle. In the field of agriculture, ITKs are practices that farmer adopt in cultivation, crop management and pest control. These knowledge sources are very handy in terms of availability and affordability to the farmers of rural area and with emergence of modern agricultural technological developments these ITKs have been going towards its extinction. Such traditional practices involve direct participation of the farmers and continuous learning. Following study explores and discuses some ITKs being practiced and popular among the farmers of Uttarkashi District (Garhwal region) of Uttrakhand. In this study 240 farmers participated and shared their views and experience of some traditional practices they undertake in various aspects of crop cultivation and pest management. Introduction With the advent of green revolution, agro chemicals has become a non-separable part of agriculture owing to better yield potential and crop health. Agriculture is mainstay of India's GDP and most of the rural population is engaged in agriculture related activities. Over use of chemical application and its residual effect could be seen in both the terrestrial life and marine life and therefore, food demand must be achieved with better quality food, along with use of less toxic chemicals (Pandey et al., 2020) [7]. Preceding mechanization of agriculture, farmers relied on indigenous knowledge for practicing farming. Indigenous pest management practices are still being followed by the farmers of Uttrakhand, and incorporating these indigenous methods into mainstream pest management research will not only be more relevant for the farmers, but also enrich the research process (Chandola et al., 2011) [2]. Indigenous traditional Knowledge (ITK) is a system of experience based learning, passed on to next generations within a community. It is dynamic, intuitive and qualitative in nature, and requires holistic approach of integrating & comprehending traditional knowledge in on-farm practice. Integrating ITK in farming system has many advantages for rural farming community viz it is a cost effective and on hand available approach. Moreover, it is experience based experimentation and provides empowerment to farming populace, and evading reliance on external source of information like chemical dealers, private NGOs and extension functionaries. Assessment of this precious knowledge resource for its scientific rationality will help in integrating it with mainstream formal research system (Sah et al., 2019) [8] and therefore, it will be of great significance to test the scientific rationality of these traditional practices and, then document those in scientific records which are the effective and rational, neglecting the practices which are unreasonable and lacks scientific grounds. Significantly, farming in hills is still traditional and mostly organic, as penetration of mass media is limited. Indigenous forms and modes of communication are prevalent. It is therefore, more necessary to identify, encourage and disseminate the ITKs, with scientific foundation, among other farming communities of the country with aim to produce quality food, steady source of income and maintain soil health.