Intersecting Knowledge With Landscape: Indigenous Agriculture, Sustainable Food Production and Response to Climate Change – A Case Study of Chuktia Bhunjia Tribe of Odisha, India

Abstract

This paper documents the traditional agricultural practices of Chuktia Bhunjia tribe of Odisha, India, and attempts to comprehend as to how they negotiate with their ecosystem in order to ensure sustainable agricultural production and livelihood. Data, collected using interview and observation, reveal that agricultural practices of the Chuktia Bhunjia are revolved around local ecology, beliefs, rituals and knowledge. The knowledge-based intercropping, agroforestry, crop rotation, crop diversity, rain-water harvesting and management of soil fertility are important domains involved in their agricultural practices that are found to as a function of long-term observation and experiments, and are reported to have been culturally reproduced through self-engagement and ritualistic practices associated with agriculture. Their agriculture is assumed to have significance in maintaining the soil fertility and moisture, and reducing greenhouse gases and enhancing carbon sequestration whereby to balance the landscape. The agroforestry-based agricultural practices, coupled with belief, ritual and technology, is also found to make their agriculture cost-effective and ensure conservation of ecological system. Climate change–driven agricultural decision-making among them is found to as a tool not only to arrest their crop failure but also to ensure sustainable food production and livelihood. Yet, the expected evacuation of inhabitant including Chuktia Bhunjia due to ‘tiger-project’ is assumed to be a threat to their agricultural knowledge and other cultural domains. Therefore, owing to the livelihood implication of traditional agriculture, any attempt to integrate their agricultural knowledge base with scientific knowledge would ensure sustainability of both ecology and livelihood together.