Abstract

The Himalayan grasslands are succession climaxes and almost no human activity like burning or forest clearance has played a role in their origin and establishment. Before the human settlements established in the Himalayan, the wild herbivorous animals utilized these grasslands and this played an important role in the development of these grasslands. Pastoralism is perhaps the very first human activity, which was initiated in the Himalayan ecosystem. The early settlers who migrated from all around this great chain of mountains found that its grasslands can sustain the livestock and a sedentary livestock system was established. The arable agriculture had not yet been introduced here. Pastoral Aryans came to the Himalaya through Hindukush Mountains during 1500 BC in search of better pastures for their livestock.  Since there was no dearth of pastures in the Himalaya, the Aryans settled down here. Later, they turned to agriculture, particularly food production. Some of the settlers, however, continued with pastoralism and gave rise to many ethnic groups like Gujjars, Bakarwals, and Gaddis etc., who adopted the migratory system of livestock rearing. The settlers after switching to arable agriculture did not abandon livestock rearing. They adopted sedentary and semi-migratory system of livestock rearing in combination with arable agriculture since no one could survive without each other.

Agro-pastoralism is the basic source of survival for both human and animal population in Himalayan region. This system has established very strong inter ecosystem linkages which lead to an efficient biomass recycling and consequent production. The key components of the system are Crop production, Animal husbandry, Common Property Resources (CPR’s) and Ecological factors. The main outputs of the systems are Food security, Employment, Ecological stability and Sustainability of the system. The paper presents the details of the systems and concludes that, by and large, this system is sustainable though some threats to the system have started their emergence.

Introduction

The Himalayan grasslands are succession climaxes and almost no human activity like burning or forest clearance has played any role in their origin and establishment. Before the human settlements established in the Himalaya, the wild herbivorous animals utilized these grasslands and this played an important role in the development of these grasslands. Pastoralism is perhaps the very first human activity, which was initiated in the Himalayan Eco-system. The early settlers who migrated from all around this great chain of mountains found that its grasslands can sustain their livestock and a sedentary livestock system was established. The arable agriculture had not yet been introduced here. Pastoral Aryans came to the Himalaya through Hindukush Mountains during 1500 BC in search of better pastures for their livestock. Since there was no dearth of the pastures in the Himalaya, the Aryans settled down here. Later, they turned to agriculture, particularly the food production.  Some of the settlers, however, continued with the pastoralism and gave rise to many ethnic groups like Gujjars, Bakarwals, and Gaddis etc., who adopted the migratory system of livestock rearing. The settlers after switching to arable agriculture did not abandon the livestock rearing. They adopted sedentary and semi-migratory system of livestock rearing in combination with arable agriculture since none could survive without each other. While the livestock would provide essential inputs like manure and draft power, the agriculture contributed forage in the form of crop residues. Thus an inter-dependent biological system of production was established in the Himalaya, which is rightly known as agro-pastoralism. This system is the most dominant production system in the Himalaya now and during the passage of time has played an important role in the physical, ecological and socio-economic development of the Himalaya.

Agro-pastoralism is the basic source of survival for both human and animal population in Himalayan region. This system has established very strong inter Eco-system linkages which lead to an efficient biomass recycling and consequent production. The key components of the system are Crop production, Animal husbandry, Common Property Resources (CPR’s) and Ecological factors. The main outputs of the system are Food security, Employment, Ecological stability and Sustainability of the system

Crop Production

Crop production is the major occupation of the farmers and is essentially dependent upon the organic manure provided by the animal component of the system. The land use pattern of the Himalaya (Table1) reveals that an area of 3.7 m ha is sown under various crops. Assuming that the average grain production of sown areas is 1.4 t/ha, a total of 5.8 m tones of grains are available for the human consumption. The crop production leads to the availability of residues, which are the basic feed for the animals. Assuming that one-hectare of cropped area produces 3.55t of crop residues, the total sown area provides 13.5 m tones of crop residues. This major contribution of the crop production can not be achieved without the essential inputs like irrigation provided by the ecological factors and the farm yard manure provided by the animals. Besides, this pursuit provides employment to 7.1 m people in the area (Table 2).

Animal husbandry     

Animal production is the second most important component of the system. The total livestock population of the Indian Himalaya is 21.4 million (Table3). Animals are reared basically to supplement the family income and to sustain the crop production. Animal based production from various enterprises is given in Table 4. The annual milk production in the area is 2.16 million tonnes while 5.90 million kg of wool is produced per annum.  Fisheries and backyard/ homestead poultry are also very important animal rearing pursuits. It is very difficult to calculate the total meat production. Since most of the goats and sheep are sold in the plains for this purpose. The animal rearing is mostly dependent upon pastures and other grazing lands. Grazing in pastures, forests and other grazing lands contributes 61% of fodder while tree leaf fodder and crop residues compensate the rest. The major contribution of the animals is the excreta, which is recycled for crop production. Ravindranath and Hall (1995) have calculated that each bovine provides 4.5 kg of dung/day while each goat or sheep provides 0.4-kg dung/day. At this rate about 11.8 m bovines and 9.5 m sheep and goat produce 56.9 m kg of organic matter per day for crop production. However, about 25 – 30 percent of this dung is used as fuel. The two major components or the system described above, clearly indicate a strong inter- dependence on each other, which has led to their symbiotic continuance for the sustenance of the system. Contribution of these components to the hill farm economy is presented in Table 5. Both of these contribute 42.5, 74.9 and 14.3 percent to hill farm economy in lower, middle and high hills of H.P State respectively. While in Uttaranchal their contribution is 54 and 68 percent in middle and high hills respectively.

Grasslands, Forests and Ecology

All these three systems are inter dependent upon each other and form a sequential chain to provide their input for the sustenance of the system. The ecological factors play an important role in the establishment, growth and survival of the grasslands and forests, which in turn provide herbage and tree fodder to the animal production system. Both grasslands and forests used to be the common property resources (CPR’s) in the Himalaya but now most of these are government controlled and the access of farmers to these resources is declining. Still their contribution to the system is substantial. Their contribution in two districts of HP State is presented in Table 6.

Thus, all the essential inputs of the system co-exit in a harmony and balance leading to the sustainability of the agro-pastoralism in the Himalaya. The major outputs of the system are employment, food security and sustainability, which are basic essentials for any system.

Outputs of the system

Employment generated by various agricultural activities including animal husbandry is enormous. Out of total workers in the Himalaya 59.17 percent is employed in various agricultural enterprises (Table 2). This employment is supplemented by various other avenues like seasonal migration to the plains, recruitment in the Government offices and private enterprises.

Out of total sown area of 3.8 mha 3.7 mha are under food production. The most common crop rotations are Rice – Wheat, Rice – Maize and Rice – Barley. The average grain production of these systems is 1.4 t/ha. On this basis a total grain production of 5.8 m t/ annum is available in the area. Though the availability of sufficient food grains for landless, small and marginal farmers may still be a problem, extra cash generation from other components of the system like animal production, CPR’s etc compensate for this and there exists, by and large, the food security for the agro- pastoralists.

Sustainability is directly proportional to the continuous and assured contributions from internal resources of a system. In case of agro- pastoralism all the essential internal resources are assured and continuously available, which have led to the sustainability of this system. Though these resources are available in abundance but of late an imbalance has started to creep in the system, which could affect the sustainability. In order to remove this imbalance following needs to be done:

• Management of the natural resources under integrated watershed development approach.
• Replenishment of vegetational covers for arresting soil and water loss.
• Plantation of mixed population of trees in wastelands.
• Adoption of water conservation resources.
• Provision of health cover for livestock.

Development of any system initiates with its establishment, expansion, stability, inter- system linkages and sustainability. The Himalayan Eco- system is ages old while the agro – pastoralism initiated here during 1500 BC. Both the systems have a symbiotic relationship. While agro- pastoralism has caused physical, human and resource development of the Himalaya, the Himalaya, on the contrary, has provided its huge natural resource base for agro pastoralists to survive. The development of both is a continuous process, which could not have been achieved without each other.

References

Ravindranath N.H and Hall, D.O 1995. Biomass, Energy and Environment: A Developing Country Perspective from India. Oxford Univ. Press.

Samra, J.S., B.L. Dhyani and A.R. Sharma 1999. Problems and Prospects of Natural Resource Management in Indian Hills – A. Base Paper. NATP; CSWCR & TI, Dehra Dun (India)

Vashisht, G.D and M.S. Pathania 2000 Role of Common Property Resources in Sustainable Development of Shivalik Hills. In. S.P. Mittal, R.K. Aggarwal and J.S. Samra (Eds) Fifty years of Research on Sustainable Resource Management in Shivaliks. CSWCR & TI Dehra Dun: 191.