Transformation of Agriculture Land into Tea Garden: Change in Biodiversity

Any transformation or change in the ecosystem has got a rippling effect. It invites a reciprocal change in the landscape, life, and livelihood of hundreds and more hundreds for the visible and invisible life forms. Tea gardening in North Bengal, covering Hill area of Darjeeling, is an internationally recognized ecosys tem and with a unique cultural identity. Due to persistent low and uncertain return from the traditional rice cultivation, the transformation of paddy fields into tea garden has been a recent trend for the Dooars part of West Bengal also. Elucidating the factors, impacts, and perceptions of farmers, mainly small and marginal, sixty respondents, who have been transformed themselves from a classical rice grower to tea garden growers, have been selected by systematic random sampling for the study. Age (X₁), education (X₂), family education (X₃) and ratio of peripheral plant (X₉) variables have been found to exert strong and determining contribution to this transformational process. The changes in the farmer’s practices from intensive farming to perennial tea gardens invite some ecological benefits including enrichment of the biodiversity which proportionally influences the ecosystem.