Name of the Scheme – IFAD – FOCUS
Department – Agriculture Production Commissioner
Scheme for : Individual and Institution.
Where to Apply : District Headquarter Office.
When to Apply :
Objectives
The overall goal of the project is to increase agricultural income of 1,18,000 households, and to enhance their resilience to climate change.
This would be achieved through the development objective of increasing the environmental sustainability and profitability of farming Systems practiced by highland farmers.
- The end objective of the Project is to gradually increase the duration of Jhum cycle and ultimately change Jhum/Shifting/Slash & Burn Farming to Permanent Settled Farming in the Project Villages.
- To achieve this objective the Project does many interventions to make the agricultural practices more:
(a) climate resilient
(b) ecologically sustainable and
(c) economically rewarding by supporting the farmers through different components & sub-components of the project and finally empower/capacitate the farming community to plan & manage the resources which it already owns along with the ones created through the project in more scientific and judicial manner.
Strategy
The project will address the issues facing jhum cultivation through:
(i) Better jhum cultivation practices that will be both more productive and more sustainable creating an ecological balance; and
(ii) supporting jhumia households to adopt alternative farming systems, particularly, sedentary farming. Both of these approaches, along with more productive wet rice fields, better plantation crops, improved livestock systems and increased off-farm income, will enhance farmer’s income and reduce pressure on natural resources and increase resilience to climate change. As farmers move to more market-orientated production, the project will support improved market access and value chain development.
Project Components:
- Component No. 1 (Improved Jhum Farming Practices)
- Component No. 2 (Value Chain Development & Market Access Facility)
- Component No. 3 (Project Management and Knowledge services)
Project Sub-Components
Component No. 1: Improved Jhum Farming Practices
i) Better Jhum
- Current jhum improvement
- Integrated jhum farming
- Community based activity
ii) Support for Integrated Settled Agriculture
- Support for Integrated TRC/Wetland Farming
- Support for Integrated Upland Settled Farming
Component No. 2: Value Chain and Market Access
i) Value Chain Development
- Crop based value chain development
- Livestock based value chain development
ii) Market Access Infrastructure
Component No. 3: Project Management
i. Project Management
ii. Monitoring, Evaluation and Knowledge Management
Approach and Target of Project
| Sl. No. | District | Block | Village |
| 1 | Mon | 8 | 91 |
| 2 | Longleng | 3 | 30 |
| 3 | Mokokchung | 8 | 58 |
| 4 | Zunheboto | 8 | 150 |
| 5 | Kiphire | 5 | 73 |
| 6 | Wokha | 7 | 100 |
| 7 | Phek | 7 | 75 |
| 8 | Kohima (+Tseminyu) | 5+2 | 40+28 |
| Total | 53 | 645 |
Approach:
- Supportive approach towards traditional & cultural farming practices without criticizing them and rather taking gradual improvising approach.
- Bottom-up approach
- Community driven & community led approach (Planning, participation and ownership)
- Participatory Land Use Planning
- Strengthening Community Institutions (FIGs, SHGs, VFGs, FPOs)
- Community Procurement (DBT to Account of Community Institutions)
Target:
- Geographical Targeting (Jhum areas, remote areas)
- Social Targeting ( Women, Youth, Protracted Illness & Disabled, Women headed HH e.g. Widow, Divorce etc.)
Desirable Outcome Based Interventions:
- 50% HH – Jhum Cycle to 3 or more years
- 50% HH – More than Doubling the income
- Increase in number of trees at least 20/Ha in jhum land
- More than 1 Lac HH adopt environment friendly, sustainable and climate resilient technologies through agro-forestry, S& WC, improved panting material, livestock
- 30000 HH adopts good animal husbandry practices
Activities
The project will have three components:
Improved Jhum Farming Practices: The project intends to introduce agricultural interventions by taking into account climate change and its impact on food production and livelihoods and promote proven and emerging climate resilient best practices.
These include:
(i) facilitate Village Councils to identify lands appropriate for cultivation and to avoid using steeply sloping lands for jhum cultivation, as is prevalent currently;
(ii) introduction of fertility management practices using both biological measures and also possibly through the introduction of “nano-nutrient delivery systems”;
(iii) use of traditional knowledge in erosion control for ensuring extension of cultivation period from currently one year to at least three years;
(iv) use of better agronomic practices, introduction of agro-forestry, linear planting, cereal and pulse cultivation to build synergy between crops to maintain soil health on one hand and improved farmer income on the other.
Value Chain and Market Access:
(a) Production Support: The project will support activities for enhancing production of Naga -chillies, large cardamom and ginger using a cluster approach. The clusters / villages will be selected based on the suitability (soil, climate, water, etc.) of soils and slopes, interest and ability of farmers to invest in labour to cultivate selected crops and ability to allocate a separate plot of about 0.5 ha either in current jhum or in fallow jhum to grow only the selected crops.
(b) Marketing Support: The major constraints to value chain development of traditional spice, and agricultural and horticultural crops are mainly issues related to marketing. They include:
- limited aggregation for achieving economies of scale required for cost effective collection, transportation and storage;
- insufficient investment in post-harvest management practices, including primary processing to add value and also to reduce volume for transportation;
- inadequate data on marketable quantity to feed into supply chain,
- inadequate linkage with premium markets on account of issues related compliance to certification and quality standards; and
- limited access to market players from outside the state.
Livestock support services: The project will train a CAHW, in all the 650 project villages. With women having a major role in livestock, about 50% CAHWs will be women and remaining will be men folk committed to serve the community and stay in the village. The project envisages immunizing the pigs and poultry in the project area and the pigs will also be de-wormed on a limited scale during the first three years of the project. The project will focus mainly on the pig sub-sector by developing support services related to breed improvement, feed improvement, and animal health. The project will demonstrate and promote feed crops cultivation (e.g. sweet potato, tapioca, colocasia, cow-pea, maize, azolla, etc.) in the backyard and create awareness among the farmers about the nutrient requirement of pigs.
Capacity building and knowledge generation: The project will be working on both jhum improvement and settled agriculture. In order to generate concurrent impact data and to demonstrate the effectiveness of these approaches, the project will engage the ICAR, Regional Centre in Barapani and the Regional Agriculture Technology Application Research Institute (ATARI). Both these institutions come under the Deputy Director General (Extension), ICAR, GoI.
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