Jhum Improvement Through Vegetable Crops and their Hyvs in Indo-Bangladesh Region

Indo-Bangladesh border has comprises with four states like Tripura, Assam, Mizoram and Meghalaya. In this region shifting cultivation or jhum cultivation one of the important practice for production of agriculture produces. Shifting cultivation, known as jhum cultivation or Slash and burn method in North-East India is widely distributed all areas of the region. Majority of tribal people (83 per cent) in the Indo-Bangladesh border is engaged in agriculture. Shifting cultivation and terrace (bun) agriculture are two major farming systems, prevalent in Indo-Bangladesh border. Horticultural crop one of the most important component in jhum cultivation and vegetable component were one of the important component for income generation but due to it's prolong period for maturation make difficult for harvest. To overcome these problems, instead of using local varieties High Yielding varieties (HYV) were introduced injhum land in Indo-Bangladesh border. Chilli (Tejaswini), brinjal (Pusa Hybrid-5, Pusa Hybrid-6), pumpkin (Arka tinda), tomato (Rokey and Avinash), vegetable pea (Arkel and rachna) and Frenchbean (Arka komal) etc. has performed very well in jhum field. Similarly, production and productivity was increased compare with local varieties by 45–55% higher for almost all the crops planted on jhum other than sequential crops. Using these improved vegetable varieties, products were ready to harvest 120–150 days instead 200–230 days and also saved life saving irrigation which were used for next crop. It has also been noticed that more area brought under the cultivation along with the increase in net return and B: C ratio. However, more numbers of family labour were brought to the work with 150.28% to 180.64% cropping intensity and 48.34–58.24% land use efficiency than their existing practices. Therefore, these can be concluded HYV on jhum land is not only increased the crop yield but also help in livelihood opportunities.