Technical Assistance for Development of Sustainable Agricultural Value Chains in Nagaland

Strategic Objective 2: Make agriculture, forestry and fisheries more productive and sustainable

Objectives: Improved capacity of community stakeholders to increase volume of marketed crops, with improved returns to producers for enhanced environmental sustainability and improved profitability of farming systems in the State of Nagaland.

Description: The livelihood systems and food habits of people in the State of Nagaland have evolved around a shifting cultivation system, known as jhum. This largely self-sufficient system is now being disrupted due to shortening of jhum cycles as a result of low productivity, growing population pressure, focus on high value crops for cash income, decrease in soil fertility and erosion of top soil erosion on account of decreased fallow cycles. In addition, jhum is highly labour intensive, yet crop yields are low and vulnerable to variations in rainfall. This is accentuated by climate change and variations. There is also a lack of capacity in the State to develop differentiated strategies to create awareness and manage jhum cultivation in a sustainable manner, both economically and environmentally. There is a need to develop an ecologically sustainable jhum system, and strengthen the capacity of relevant stakeholders on the same.

Further, Nagaland faces value chain constraints like: inadequate availability of quality planting material/seed; inappropriate/unscientific package of practices; lack of aggregation to determine the marketable quantity to feed into supply chain; lack of testing and certification to access premium organic markets; and limited access to market players from outside the State. It is important to address the capacity gaps amongst value chain stakeholders to coordinate and facilitate business promotion and development services. Other issues that need to be addressed are: weak management and business planning capacity of households and community organizations; information asymmetry between traders and producers; weak linkages with markets; lack of demand driven production planning; inadequate resource mobilisation for promoting farm or off-farm business enterprises, individual entrepreneurship; and value chain development.

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) is providing technical expertise to support the Government of Nagaland towards strengthening the capacity of community stakeholders for sustainable jhum management and development of business plans for sustainable value chain development and improve and upgrade the agricultural curriculum.

Donor: FAO

Expected Outputs:

• Government institutions and community stakeholders have access to quality training tools, methods and processes to increase volume of marketed crops.