Present scenario of agriculture and its allied occupation in a typical hill village of central Himalaya, India

Abstract

In India, Uttarakhand is considered as agriculture state and development of the state primarily linked to the agriculture and its allied activities. In this study, a village Sariatal was selected in mid altitudinal hill range of central Himalaya with the objectives to assess the economy and energy efficiency of existing agroecosystem. Agriculture is the major source of revenue in this village. Overall energy input in agricultural activities of the village was 167 727.80 MJ/ha/y of which, agroforestry and home garden shared 89.41 and 10.59%, respectively. In terms of monetary benefit, per ha annual output was Rupees 59 249.38 (967.57 US$) for agroforestry system and Rupees 23 530 (385.86 US$) for home garden. The input output ratio in agroforestry systems and home garden was 1.34 and 1.23, respectively. The output/input ratio of the individual cereal crop indicated that wheat (23.28) contributed the highest among all followed by the paddy (17.97). The production of the green vegetables is also contributing in monitory budget with 19.58 output/input ratio. Farmers in the village also adopted allied occupation like apiculture, floriculture and mushroom production to generate the economy and self-employment.