Land is a vital natural resource.?? In an agriculture based substantive economy, livelihoods and access to food and basic needs are fulfilled by various types of land-use through agriculture and collections. The spectrum of agricultural land varies across terrain and geography depending on the slope, access to water, seasonality and numerous socio-cultural and ecological characteristics.
Koraput district, in southern part of Odisha is in the continuum of the eastern ghats, predominantly inhabited by numerous indigenous communities. These communities traditionally practiced shifting cultivation or slash-and-burn agriculture in the higher slopes and fallow cultivation in lower slopes. The valley land where water was available permanent agriculture was practiced, mostly growing paddy and vegetables.?? In the recent past, there has been a dramatic change in the land-use. Agriculture has been intensified across slopes. The shifting cultivation and fallow lands are terraced to grow millets or paddy, mostly as monocrops. Eucalyptus plantations has come up in places, catering to the demand from paper mills. The intensification of agriculture is also induced by commercial demand and state policies.
Locally, the agricultural land is classified into five categories, such as jhola, saria, beda, pada, and donger. Typically, during the kharif season, these villagers also cultivate millets and maize in both the pada and donger categories of land, paddy in the jhola and saria categories of land, vegetables and pulses in the beda and pada categories of land. They alter the cropping pattern during the rabi season so that only jhola land is utilized for paddy agriculture and the other types of land, such as Saria and Beda, are used for vegetable cultivation.