In recent years, shifting cultivation or jhum has often been viewed through a lens of environmental concern and developmental urgency. It is regularly blamed for deforestation, soil degradation, and low productivity. However, this narrative oversimplifies a deeply rooted agricultural practice and risks overlooking the cultural, ecological, and economic dimensions that make jhum essential to the fabric of Naga society.
It is important to acknowledge that jhum is not a reckless or outdated system. Rather, it is a finely adapted practice developed over generations to suit the hilly terrains of Nagaland. Far from being environmentally destructive, traditional jhum cycles allowed for natural regeneration of forests through long fallow periods. These cycles maintained biodiversity, enriched the soil organically, and sustained entire communities with diversified food sources.
Critics often promote settled, monocrop farming as the logical alternative. Yet monocropping carries its own dangers like soil depletion, pest vulnerability, market dependence, and increased use of chemical fertilizers. By contrast, jhum promotes polyculture, helping maintain food security and dietary diversity. The shift away from jhum to commercial crops, if done without caution, may expose communities to economic shocks and ecological imbalance.
One of the more worrying trends today is the gradual disappearance of traditional jhum farmers. As younger generations move to urban centers or take up non-agricultural livelihoods, invaluable indigenous knowledge is being lost. With it, the community’s connection to land, forest, and seasonal cycles is also fading. This cultural dislocation cannot be easily reversed.
Moreover, as jhum fields lie fallow for increasingly longer periods due to fewer traditional farmers, sometimes up to 30 years in some villages now, the system becomes unsustainable not because of inherent flaws, but due to pressure from population shifts, land-use changes, and policy neglect.
Rather than demonize jhum, the focus should be on supporting communities to adapt and strengthen this practice through agroforestry, improved seed systems, or scientific input and explore how to support and adapt it to current realities without severing its traditional roots.
Abandoning jhum entirely risks severing a vital link to identity, food autonomy, and ecological resilience.
The way forward is not to replace it wholesale, but to understand and refine it, honoring the wisdom of those who have nurtured this land long before government policies and programs arrived.