Indigenous methods of grain storage followed by the Lepcha and Limbo tribes in the Himalayan tract of Sikkim (original) (raw)
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Indian Journal of Traditional Knowledge, 2010
Tribals are known to have rich knowledge of indigenous technology pertaining to agriculture practices and an attempt was made to document the indigenous knowledge. Data was collected from 3 districts covering 9 villages from 225 farmers with the help of a structured questionnaire. In all, broadly classified 26 indigenous knowledge were identified in the study area. Jharkhand is one of the eastern states, where bulk of tribals live, constituting about 28% of total population. It is a homeland of 30 tribes including 8 primitive tribes. The tribes happened to be primarily rural and their economy is predominantly agricultural, based on natural seasons comprising and exploited on primitive methods. These tribes have rich knowledge about the indigenous practices especially in soil management, seed protection and post harvest aspect on paddy. This traditional knowledge has been derived from the tribe's farming experience through trial and error method and handed down from previous gene...
Research Paper, 2020
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.
Journal of Ethnobiology and Ethnomedicine, 2019
Abstract The wild plants not only form an integral part of the culture and traditions of the Himalayan tribal communities but also contribute largely to the sustenance of these communities. The tribal people use large varieties of wild fruits, vegetables, fodder, medicinal plants, etc. for meeting their day-to-day requirements. The present study was conducted in Churah subdivision of district Chamba where large populations of Muslim Gujjars inhabit various remote villages. These tribal people are semi-pastoralists, and they seasonally (early summers) migrate to the upper altitudes (Adhwari’s) along with their cattle and return to permanent settlements before the onset of winters. A major source of subsistence of these tribal people is on natural resources to a wide extent, and thus, they have wide ethnobotanical knowledge. Therefore, the current study was aimed to report the ethnobotanical knowledge of plants among the Gujjar tribe in Churah subdivision of district Chamba, Himachal Pradesh.
Environment Conservation Journal, 2021
Arunachal Pradesh is known as land of rising Sun which is the biggest in terms of area-wise amongst the state of north east India.The region has 26 major tribe; each tribe has its own enormous indigenous knowledge on the uses of wild plants. Among the tribe, Adi community is one of the major tribe inhabited in the region which has its own habitual way of using horticultural (vegetables) resources for sustaining livelihood. Most of the plants are also ethnically important without wich diverse rituals and festivals (Solung) of adi community remain unfinished. The current servey was under taken interviewed through planned questionaire. In our investigation among 25 wild species, 5 species belong to the Solanaceae family which was found to be most widely used family followed by Apiaceae, Rutaceae, Urticaceae and Araceae. Investigation on the basis of plant parts used reveals that the edible parts of the plants such as 6 species found to be widely used though leaves followed by 3 species...
Climate Action, 2022
This study describes the traditional seed system for maintaining crop vigour through seed selection, storage and exchange practices by the local farmers inhabiting the Shivalik-Bhabar tracts of western Himalaya in Una district of Himachal Pradesh state, India. The study area falls in subtropical zone where the arable land is heavily laden with cobbles and pebbles. Three villages, namely, Baliwal, Pubowal and Janani, were selected for documenting the traditional seed system. Chain referral method was used for identifying the Key Knowledge Holders and households (N=136) from the selected villages. Along with the documentation, a participatory experiment on traditional seed storage of indigenous and high-yielding varieties of wheat and maize was conducted during two cropping seasons, i.e. Rabi (Nov-Mar) and Kharif (Jun-Oct), respectively, to validate the traditional knowledge of local farmers. The results of the experiment showed that traditional treatments of seeds using dry neem (Azadirachta indica) leaves, safety match sticks and a combination of both acted as disinfectants during storage with slightly differing levels of effectiveness. It has been observed that the traditional seed system is playing a crucial role in maintaining the crop vigour and diversity and also strengthening the socio-cultural relationship among the local farming communities.
Documentation of Indigenous Storage Practices of Pulse Seed
Journal of Agroforestry and Environment
Storage of pulse seed is a crucial postharvest operation. But storage practices vary over local natural resources, climate and culture of the society. This study assessed indigenous storage system of pulse seeds in six selected pulse growing districts in Bangladesh. Data were collected from 180 sample farmers through survey method and multistage stratified random sampling technique was followed to select these farmers. It was observed that farmers mostly cultivated mungbean, grass pea, lentil, chickpea, blackgram and pea of which mungbean, lentil and grasspea covered 84% of the total pulse crop cultivation. Sun drying was found to be the most commonly practiced traditional seed drying system, accounting for 100% of the respondents. A number of storage materials were used in the survey areas of which plastic drum was found to be the mostly adopted storage materials. Survey farmers were found to treat seed before storing it for future use. Overall, 42% of the total surveyed farmers us...