Traditional pest management practices of Assam

Abstract

The paper describes the Indigenous Technical Knowledge (ITK) of pest management prevalent among the farmers of Golaghat, Jorhat and Sivasagar districts of Assam. The information was collected on the basis of personal interview to each of the farmers through a questionnaire. Mosaic of ITKs appeared from the farmer's practices and many of them may serve as the input for valid scientific investigation for large scale use of insect pest management. management IPC Code: Int. Cl. 7 C05G3/00, A01M1/00, A01M5/00, A01M31/00, A01N3/00 More than 70% of the people of the Assam are engaged in agriculture. Among the various agricultural crops, rice is the most dominant crop occupying 80% of the total agricultural land of the region 1 . The farmers from different ethnic diversity of the region have developed their own systems in cultivation of various crops 2 . These practices, commonly known as indigenous technical knowledge (ITK) are therefore, quite endemic to this region which may be true for other regions of the country as well. Recently, the organic agriculture is emphasized, particularly in rich biodiversity areas like North East India. The ITKs are ecofriendly and compatible to other pest management practices. Further, due to rapid urbanization, the ethnic groups are promptly reducing their conservative attitude for which the long earned ITK that they are carrying from generation to generation are quickly disappearing. In this context, collection, compilation and scientific evaluation of the ITKs are very important. The present paper catalogues such ITKs practiced by the farmers of North East India.