Department of Soil & Water Conservation

INTEGRATED LAND DEVELOPMENT PROJECT IN NAGALAND

Introduction:

Land and water are the two most vital natural resources for sustainable development that provides the basic need of food, fiber, timber etc. for mankind. As land resources are limited and subject to competing usage it is absolutely necessary that land productivity is improved through sustainable and scientific management practices without impairing the ecological and environmental status.

Nagaland being predominantly a tribal state, the socio-economic condition differs vastly with other parts of the country. The economy of the State is sharply defined by its remoteness and the natural environment; transport over mountainous passes is difficult and expensive. The agricultural development is impeded by the biophysical limitations of the area in addition to the traditional type of cultivation called jhum or shifting cultivation.

Thus the state is confronted with a situation in which not only soil has to be conserved but a suitable infrastructure that will give modification or alternative to shifting cultivation needs to be evolved to enable the people to produce sufficient food grains for their sustenance, growth and well being in addition to the conservation of ecology and environment.

One of the surest way of achieving the objective of modification or alternative to the shifting cultivation and soil and water conservation is to accept the land development with terracing in the hill slopes as an infrastructure for permanent cultivation of crops like paddy, potato, oilseeds, vegetable etc. But the budgetary resources available with the state government being quite limited vis-à-vis the need there is imperative necessity to take advantage of the institutional credit support.

Therefore, keeping in view of the above observations and past experience in land development with heavy machineries and bench terracing with peoples participation the present proposal is drawn up for wide land development particularly in jhum lands of the state in order to stabilize the unbalanced and rapid deteriorating land degradation and increase food production. The project cost is  Rs. 1610.70 lakhs and the required amount of the negotiated loan shall be Rs. 1000 lakhs for the 2003-2004, 2004-2005 and 2005-2006 amounting to Rs. 200.00, Rs. 400.00 and Rs. 400.00 only as Phase-I, Phase-II and Phase-III respectively for the project.

APPROACH TO THE PRESENT PROJECT:

Approach to the present project will have demonstrative effect. Although there has been a group of progressive farmers in the state, the bulk of farming community are yet to stabilize their economy by way of switching over to the permanent agriculture. The imbalance in the level of development amongst the various farming communities has caused a variation in the needs of the people. So priorities have been fixed for conduction of large scale mechanized land development demonstration and providing incentives of subsidy for inducing the farmers to land development with terracing land reclamation fertility management et c. Particularly in shifting cultivation dominated areas.

The project will be concentrated on:

(a)    Land development in rolling terrain by using heavy machineries in the foot hills and valley land.

(b)   Bench terracing in the hill slopes up to 30% slope through people’ participation.

(c)    Nutrient management through vermi-compost and vermi composting demonstration.

The proposed work will therefore be an improvement and advancement on the previous project works as discussed.

METHODOLOGY OF PROJECT IMPLEMENTATION:  

(i)                   Invitation and collection of proposals for taking up the land development projects from the villagers of different districts in the State.

(ii)                 Conduct rapid reconnaissance Soil & Socio-economic survey to ascertain feasibility and success of the programme.

(iii)                Selection of the lost feasible area for the project with the support of village council and the farmers.

(iv)               Extension and motivation drives and selection of the village level board and beneficiaries.

(v)                 Detail Soil survey, Planning projectization and layout with farmer’s participation.

(vi)               Jungle clearing, debris clearing, up rooting etc.

(vii)              Earth cutting, removing of gelling, leveling etc.

(viii)            Shoulder bund construction, drainage and safe disposal of water with silt detention pits with sod ding and necessary stone patching.

(ix)               Provide necessary security fencing, manuring to be followed by crop production.

(x)                 The land so developed will be completely handed over to the farmer for cultivation, upkeep, maintenance and harvest year after year.

PROJECT DESCRIPTION: 

                        The project has 4(four) main activities, they are: 

1.      Land Development with terracing through peoples’ participation:

Improvement method of cultivation and intensive agricultural operation can only be practiced in permanent field where inputs such as manures and fertilizers etc. can be taken full advantage. So it is necessary to bring more land under terraced cultivation both wet and dry for increasing food production potentials basis. The terraced construction can be taken up in the land upto 30 % slope which is a very costly affair. We can develop 3270 Hac. of land through peoples’ participation @ Rs. 34,000.00/Hac and @ Rs. 17,000/Hac. with 50 % subsidy payment to the farmer participants. Here double or cropping/multiple of paddy, soyabean, rapes and mustard, pea, cabbage have been taken as model cropping pattern. Other cropping pattern may be followed as per the recommendation of the ICAR and Agriculture Department Crop Loan  can also be appealed later from financial institution for crop cultivation.

We have developed 660.00 Hac. during 2003-04 ( Phase-I) and made 50 % subsidy payment. The remaining amount of the 50 % has been contributed by the beneficiaries in their own field. It is proposed to develop 1300.00 Ha. during 2004-05.

2. Land Development in rolling terrain by using heavy machineries:

There is an ultimate potential of about 1.0 lakh Hectares for irrigation development in the hills and major river valley areas in the state where land leveling and development is essential. This will substantially increase the yields of food grains especially on the high yielding varieties. The farmers in the state have realized the need for systematic land shaping and leveling on an area basis. It is emphasized that suitable land development programes may be taken up on priority basis. Due to chronic labour shortage in the state it has been a threat to this gigantic task, the state department of Soil & Water Conservation resorted/proposed to use heavy machineries under this project. The present proposal includes hiring of heavy machineries. It has developed 469 Ha. during 2003-04 (Phase-I) and proposed to develop 931.00 Ha. during 2004-05 as Phase-II by heavy machineries. It is expected that there will be an additional area of 2304.00 Ha. of land developed by heavy machineries at the end of the Phase-III i.e. during 2005-06.

3. Vermi Composting:

Organic manure is an indispensable component of soil and plays an important role in the maintenance of soil productivity and in improving physical condition of soil for sustainable and better plant growth. Continues use of chemical fertilizers, pesticides will lead to decline in soil fertility and productivity besides causing deficiency, environmental problem and imbalance of micronutrient.

Vermi compost as a source of organic manure can improve yield of rice and other crops. Since the rice area is declining in Nagaland, vermi compost can be suggested as potential organic manures to improve rice and other crop yields, and thereby to sustain self sufficiency in food grain production. It helps in utilizing the agricultural and animal waste, waste management, resources recovery and environmental conservation. It also generates additional employment to the people.

Although the jhum cultivators are deriving the advantages of earthworm cast during jhum cultivation, the terraced cultivators had not applied the vermi compost at any moment in their field. The terrace cultivators perceive vermi composting as costly, complex, not treatable, risky and not useful. Moreover, the exact method of preparation of vermi compost is not known to them. The farmers are in the dark as far as the usefulness of vermi composting in sustainable agriculture is concerned and the simple technology involved. Hence it is proposed to educate and convince to adopt the eco-friendly and innovative technology like vermi composting by conducting result demonstrations on the farmers’ field. It can prove the efficiencies of practices of installations of vermi composting which are not practiced by any terrace farmers. It can serve as permanent infrastructure for eco-friendly nutrient supply technology adoption as well as center for offering good hand on training facilities.

It has installed 100 Nos. of small scale vermi composting unit in different location in terrace cultivation areas as a follow up of training on vermi composting during 2003-04 and proposed to install 290 units of the said innovative technology during 2004-05.

4. Training and Demonstration:

It is one of the important component of the Integrated Land Development project in Nagaland. Training on the land development, vermi composting and the crop cultivation of both vegetables and field crops in the village level shall be an important component of the project for which trainers’ training is usually conducted in the Directorate. The Department has utilized an amount of Rs. 4.90 lakhs during 2003-04 and proposed an amount of Rs. 9.10 lakhs during 2004-05.

Benefits of the Project:

The advantage of making proposed project of land development by machinery, bench terracing by farmers and the vermi composting is that, apart from food production and food security all other benefits like employment generation, soil erosion control, settlement of jhum cultivator with assured permanent cultivation land, use of eco-friendly vermi compost instead of hazardous chemical fertilizers and pesticides etc. can taken care of by the project. It can create an awareness about the environment protection not only for them but for the people living in lower stream of the watershed. Above all the programme would lift millions for households who are below poverty line to a level of modest living and overall improvement in living standards of the rural population. The scheme will stabilize 5574.00 Ha. of hill slopes and foot hill areas during the whole project period i.e. in the Phase-I to Phase-III which otherwise will be subjected to heavy soil erosion and environment degradation as a result of tradition shifting cultivation and other unscientific land uses.

WORKING PLAN OF THE PROJECT

16.1 Working Plan of project:

There are 16(sixteen) tribes in the State scattered over8 (eight) Administrative Districts (2001). Each tribe has definite territory within the district. Again each tribe has a number of villages. Therefore a village will be taken as a unit of working plan and its administrative control. Sometimes two or more villages are sharing the potential areas like river valley, foot hill areas etc. so they have to share the responsibilities for the success of the project.

Keeping in view of the above points, the whole project works like selection of potential areas, awareness generation for scientific land development shall be carried out by the Department in collaboration with the Village Development Board and Village Council. All the Bench Terracing works and crop cultivation will be done by the beneficiaries under direct supervision of the implementing agency and VDBs. The Land Development in rolling terrain shall be done by using heavy machineries under the supervision of Directorate, the Mechanical Division and concerned officers and staff selected for the work. The work done during a particular phase shall be handed over to the farmer for scientific crop cultivation.