Crop-Livestock Interactions and livelihoods in the indo-gangetic plains, India: a regional synthesis

Abstract

The research and development community faces the challenge of sustaining crop productivity gains, improving rural livelihoods, and securing environmental sustainability in the Indo-Gangetic Plains (IGP). This calls for a better understanding of farming systems and of rural livelihoods, particularly with the advent of, and strong advocacy for, conservation farming and resource-conserving technologies. This report presents a regional synthesis of four scoping studies to assess crop livestock interactions and rural livelihoods in each of the four subregions of the Indian IGP: the TransGangetic Plains (TGP: Punjab and Haryana), the Gangetic Plains of Uttar Pradesh (UP), Bihar, and West Bengal. The scoping studies draw from village surveys in three districts per subregion and from secondary data. The IGP can be divided broadly into eastern and western subregions. The eastern subregion (Eastern UP, Bihar, West Bengal) has problems of poor water control and flooding; rain-fed (monsoonal/kharif) lowland rice is the traditional cereal staple and the mainstay of food security. It was only in recent decades that wheat and other cool-season crops were introduced on a large scale in Eastern India, north of the Tropic of Cancer. In contrast, the western subregion (TGP, Western Uttar Pradesh) is mainly semiarid and would be water-scarce if not for its irrigation infrastructure of canals and groundwater tube wells. In the western plains, winter/rabi wheat has traditionally been, and continues to be, the mainstay of food security. In recent decades, there has been a major increase in the area of rice grown in the monsoonal/kharif season. Another important contrast is that whereas in the Eastern IGP cattle are the predominant livestock, in the Western IGP buffalo dominate. In broad terms therefore, the Eastern IGP is characterized by rural livelihoods based on rice-cattle farming systems, while rural livelihoods in the Western IGP are based on wheat buffalo farming systems. Therefore, although the IGP is a contiguous plain area, there are significant gradients and variations between subregions. The sheer size of the IGP also implies that each subregion assumes national prominence: the TGP is India’s granary; UP is India’s most populous state; Bihar is one of India’s poorest states and West Bengal is India’s most densely populated state.