Agri department works on ‘climate-smart’ farming for marginal farmers

Our Reporter
Dimapur, Feb. 19 (EMN): The department of Agriculture has initiated a project called the ‘fostering climate-resilient upland farming in the north east’ (Focus) Nagaland funded by the International Fund for Agricultural Development (Ifad), with an objective to foster climate-smart highland agriculture for marginal farmers and rural villages of Nagaland.

It also aims to improve and invest livelihood options through sustainable and equitable use of natural resources with a vision to increase agriculture income of 137,000 households. Besides, it has the goal to enhance their resilience to Climate Change, according to the annual administrative report for 2019-2020 of the Agriculture department.

In its annual report, the department maintained that Focus Ifad Nagaland is an intervention into the current farming and livelihood practices of the state as ‘Jhum’ cultivation and the traditional foods that it produces are the cornerstones of the tribal cultural heritage and identity in Nagaland. The project focuses on making the system more productive and sustainable, the updates stated.

The duration of the project is initially for 6 years, and was launched in 2018 and will be continued till 2023. Its targets include farmers of eight project districts of Nagaland who are dependent on ‘jhum’ cultivation. It covers 625 villages across eight districts namely Mon, Longleng, Zunheboto, Wokha, Kiphire, Phek, Mokokchung and Kohima. (See table)

The agriculture department reported that the project consists of three components: Jhum improvement, value chain and market access, and project management and knowledge services.

Some of the activities that were taken up during 2019-2020 by the Agriculture department for the Focus project were free, prior and informed consent (FPIC) which is a mandatory criterion for implementation of the Focus project in the village. It also maintained that the FPIC was carried out in all the 650 villages out of which consent letters were received for 625 villages. It states that the recruitment of staffs for project management units (PMU) and district management units (DMU) is complete.

The department reported that the Focus project’s launch and a start-up workshop were held from January 14 to the 19^th 2019 in Dimapur. Likewise, a training of trainer programme on ‘participatory land use planning’ (PLUP) was carried out in all eight district headquarters, involving the Agriculture Technology Management Agency officers and staff.

The project has completed conducting village level consultation and PULP for 625 villages and the PULP process was done with the support from the Nagaland GIS and remote sensing application (NaGISRSC), its annual report states.

The Agriculture department also stated that three farmer’s interest group (FIG) were formed from each village as ‘Jhum FIG, terrace rice cultivation’ (TRC) and settled FIG with bank accounts.  A total of 1686 FIG were formed which included 590 Jhum FIG, 501 TRC FIG and 595 settled FIG. It maintained that a total of 1480 FIG have opened their bank accounts till December 2019.

The department stated further that 611 lead farmers have been appointed in the eight project districts and reported that training programmes of the lead farmers were conducted by the project implementation team in the eight project districts covering all the blocks, the annual report states.

The Agriculture department also states that community animal health workers’ (CAHW) selection and identification is in process. Till date, 464 CAHW have been nominated, while PMU and DMU offices have been set up in all the eight project districts.