Attitude of farmers towards shifting cultivation in selected districts of Nagaland state

Abstract

Shifting cultivation, also known as Jhum (slash and burn), is an old-age cultivation practice that has been practiced by the indigenous people of the hilly states of the north-eastern part of India since time immemorial. Jhum cultivation is now thought to be a natural exploitative system where the land and natural resources are not managed optimally. It is also one of the primary contributors to deforestation and inefficient land use with low productivity and return on investment, according to Gupta, 2005. An attempt was made to measure the attitude of farmers towards shifting cultivation in selected districts of Nagaland state with a sample size of 120 respondents. The Khuhly and Mishra (2016) scale was used for measuring farmers’ attitudes towards shifting cultivation. The respondents were interviewed personally with the help of structured interview schedule. The majority (63.7%) of respondents had a moderately favourable attitude towards shifting cultivation, while 20% of them had a highly favourable attitude and 16.33 % had a low favourable attitude towards shifting cultivation, according to the findings.