Drought conditions and management strategies in India - Country Report prepared for the Regional Workshop for Asia-Pacific as part of the UN-Water Initiative on “Capacity Development to Support National Drought Management Policies” organized from 6-9th May 2014 in Hanoi, Vietnam.

This Access and Benefit Sharing Policy is developed to guide access to Bhutan’s genetic resources and associated traditional knowledge and ensure the fair and equitable sharing of benefits arising from their research and commercial utilization.

Ethnomedicinal studies revealed the use of 34 angiospermic species by the Bondo tribe of Malkangiri district of Odisha. The traditional uses were observed to be wide spread and prevalent over modern medicine in the study area. In the present paper, plants for various diseases have been discussed togeather with dosage and mode of administration.

Original Source

Paddy is cultivated with fish rearing, is practised by the Apatani tribe of the ziro valley. The study analyses the contribution made to total and net revenue by the fish rearing component of the system. Fish cultivation contributes significantly to total and net income from agri-pisciculture.it is thus recommended that the system should be encouraged using high yielding varieties of paddy and fish.

Original Source

Non timber forest products (NTFPs) play significant role in the protection of the livelihood safety net of the forest dwellers of North East India. The present study has the objectives of documenting the traditional knowledge pertaining to the processing of non-timber forest products in the Inner Line Reserve Forest (ILRF) of Cachar district, Assam, India. This forest harbours about 21 commercially important NTFPs, 8 of which are subjected to different traditional processing techniques before marketing to ensure their durability and enhanced resistance to fungal and insect attacks.

Climate change is expected to adversely affect agricultural production in India. This study was undertaken to understand the dryland farmers’ perceptions about climate change, its impacts and indigenous adaptation measures they pursue. From the analysis of data collected from 200 dryland farmers of Villupuram and Virudhunagar districts in Tamil Nadu, it was found that 81 % of farmers experienced climate change in terms of decreasing and unpredictable rainfall, increasing temperature and delayed onset of monsoon. Analysis of climate trend validated their perceptions.

Resource-poor farmers, living in marginal environments and more directly dependent on local natural resources, have developed location specific agricultural knowledge systems that help them to adapt to climatic variability. In this research, we documented farmers’ perceptions of climatic variability and related adaptive practices in three selected hamlets of Azamgarh district of eastern Uttar Pradesh, India. Data were collected with 60 farmers using participatory rural appraisal (PRA) tools and personal interview methods.

New hybrid forms of climate change adaptation combining local and nonlocal/scientific knowledge are emerging across the Asian Highlands region. Yet, while local adaptive capacity can be based on place-based knowledge that governments often lack, communities still need assistance from states to better adjust to climate change and socioeconomic impacts. Using a regional literature review, we evaluate the role of evolving hybrid forms of adaptive knowledge for coping with environmental and social change.

Understanding the effects of actions undertaken by human societies on crop evolution processes is a major challenge for the conservation of genetic resources. This study investigated the mechanisms whereby social boundaries associated with patterns of ethnolinguistic diversity have influenced the on-farm distribution of sorghum diversity. Social boundaries limit the diffusion of planting material, practices and knowledge, thus shaping crop diversity in situ.

Agriculture is under pressure to produce greater quantities of food, feed and biofuel on limited land resources. Current over-reliance on a handful of major staple crops has inherent agronomic, ecological, nutritional and economic risks and is probably unsustainable in the long run. Wider use of today’s underutilized minor crops provides more options to build temporal and spatial heterogeneity into uniform cropping systems and will enhance resilience to both biotic and abiotic stress.

Pages