Deceitful Catchment Area for the Development of Agriculture and Horticulture Aspects in the Himalayan Region

Abstract

The glaciers and annual snowfalls in the Himalayan region feed rivers serving 47% of the world’s population. No other region in the world has the comparable number of people, scarcity of rainfall, dependence on agriculture, tempting sites for mega-projects and vulnerability to climate change. Being a part of north-western Himalayan region, the catchment development (CD) block of Banjar in the district Kullu of Himachal Pradesh has 49 Micro Watersheds (MWs) out of which 4 are snow bound and are inaccessible to carry out any developmental activity. In order to do socio-economic study and assess the extent of Horticultural, Agricultural, Vegetable Production and Animal Husbandry development, NERIL conducted field survey in all these Community Development Blocks in 2012. For the purpose of this survey, the random sampling size comprised of minimum 10% of the revenue villages and 5 nos. of households up to a total of 250 households. In case of households exceeding 250 nos. an additional household was surveyed for an increase of every 50 households thereafter. As per these criterion 177 households in CD Block Kullu. The block has 10858 ha area owned by the farmers in which various agricultural activities including vegetable cultivation and animal husbandry are carried out. Additionally, 7254 ha area is available for the cultivation of different fruit crops viz. apple, plum, pomegranate, peanut, persimmon and walnut. The Block has 6935 ha area on which various cereal and vegetable crops are grown. Among the cereal crops, Maize dominates during Kharif season whereas Wheat and Barley are the main crops during Rabi season. Themaize accounts for 84.2% of the cropped area during Kharif season whereas wheat accounts for 82.2 % of the cropped area during Rabi season. The vegetables are grown on 1360 ha (cropped) area in the block. The most preferred vegetable crops are peas, garlic, cauliflower and cabbage. They are grown by 60.7, 45.6, 24.4 and 11.2 % farmers respectively. The farmer’s feed good amount (3.5 kg) of concentrate per cattle per day.The average milk yield of improved breeds is 5.6 liter per day whereas that of local cows is about 2.7 liter perday. The most discouraging feature of the animal husbandry activity has been negligible availability of green fodder. On the above survey data were concluded that, a total sum of Rs. 592.52 lacs will be required to bring the desired improvement in the economy of farmers at least partially and conserve the soil and water to reduce the silt load of the river water system in near future.