Juhm Farming in Arunachal Pradesh and Nagaland

Sustainable slash and burn agriculture in North East India

All photos © Julian Swindell

North East Indian states

Arunachal Pradesh

Assam

Nagaland

The Brahmaputra river

Finding the ferry “terminal”. The river bank changes with every rainfall

Ferry across the Brahmaputra

Our car being loaded, with lunch on the roof…

What could possibly go wrong?

Assam, flat, fertile, covered in tea plantations.

Arunachal Pradesh

Arunachal, mountainous, tribal, very thinly populated.

Home of the star magnolia

Hotel on high Maya pass

Mithun, feral buffalo, store of wealth and slaughtered for festivals

Hunting still practiced, but with guns. This hunter was 92 and last hunted with bows and arrows in the 1960s

Ziro valley is high and flat and dominated by permanent rice paddies. Entirely unmechanised.

Whole families work in ancestral rice fields

Turmeric being dried near Pakke

Some crops and vegetables are very familiar, many are not.

Vegetables harvested form the forests, plus aubergines

Salt cakes, made from wood smoke deposits in the houses. Salt is in seriously short supply in the mountains

Everything is moved in baskets, by women…

In the mountains, dry rice is the staple, along with pigs

Slash and burn in the Adi tribal areas. Each cleared area is cultivated for two years

Complete areas are cleared of all trees and plant life by fire

Rice is planted before the monsoon, so that it holds the soil together during the rains. Harvested after the monsoon. The fields have to be protected from wild elephants who love fresh growing rice plants

These girls had just finished working in the Juhm fields and came to entertain us

By dancing to the latest Bollywood hits blasted out of a Karaoke machine

Spot the visitors…

Rice paddy is stored in granaries and threshed during the monsoon season as needed.

Pork is the staple meat

Adi houses are spectacularly beautiful. Designed to keep families dry during the monsoon. Annual rainfall is between 2-4 metres

Nagaland

Kohima, Capital of Nagaland

Kohima War Cemetery

Nagaland is intensely tribal

Quite tough tribes…

Angouli, from the Angami tribe

Hekani, from the Suomi tribe (with a “European”)

Kohnoma, home village of the Angami

Angouli at the very edge of the British Empire

All firewood is moved on foot in back baskets

Traditional clothing is based on warm, woollen shawls, woven on back-strap looms

The valley is intensively cultivated in terraces

Smaller “market garden” terraces run up to the village itself

Villagers can be in the fields in minutes

Potatoes, corn, beans and over 20 varieties of rice

There are no written histories and all constructions are said to be “about one hundred years old. They are clearly ancient.

Flooded terraces are used for rice at low level and fish farming at higher levels

Crops are planted and managed by hand and rotated

Towards the top of the terracing, things start to look different. Notice all the trees

Juhm shifting farming, based on Nepalese alder trees

The trees are pollarded, traditionally on an eight year Rotation. Branches are used for firewood and building

The trees are not cut down. After each pollarding, waste wood is burnt and ash spread around trees, and crops planted.

These trees show about one year’s growth, and the land around is still being cropped.

After two years of cropping, the land and trees are left to regenerate for another six years.

After four years it looks like completely abandoned farm land, but it is actually under a careful management system

The Angami valley is unique in Nagaland. In all other tribes, nearly all of the trees have been cleared and the land farmed conventionally

The Juhm system extends beyond the terraces, up the open valley sides

Farming on the hillsides is not as easy or as productive as in the terraces.

Where undergrowth is cleared on hillsides, steps are taken to stop open soil erosion.

Livestock, semi-wild cattle, are confined to the hillsides above the arable fields. They are brought into the village for slaughter. Every household also has a pig. Nagas eat anything that moves…

Kohima market is not for the faint hearted, (such as me)These eels come from the terraced fields. I didn’t ask where the wriggly black things with a million little legs came from

But do go to Nagaland, it is wonderful and welcoming.