More than half the Tribal population is sorely sustained by ‘Agriculture’, which has been a primary source of income for the population who belong to rural areas of India. And propitiously, agriculture is considered as the heart and soul of Indian economy. An outspread economic sector as 18% of country's GDP is contributed by Agriculture. India positions first and second in the world for highest net cropped areas, and farm output and productivity respectively.
For over 2000 years agriculture has been the spine of our country. But that strength has now grown feeble due to several reasons. It is our reliability to hand down the conventional custom to the next generation and to indoctrinate the auxiliary knowledge across the world. HRDS INDIA is able to illumine it eminently in Indian subcontinent. Herbal yielding is said to be the only countermeasure that has brought about by HRDS INDIA, and this is the reason behind ‘KARSHAKA’, the tribal agricultural development project. This way the Indian soil could beget crude and highly ameliorating Ayurvedic medicines, and augment the forsaken land of tribal communities in order to retrieve the bygone lives of tribal folks in Adivasi areas of Kerala..
Background of the project
HRDS INDIA has pitch upon Attappady region of Palakkad district of Kerala as the location for the implementation of the project ‘KARSHAKA’. They sniff out the reasons like uncontrolled deforestation, over-grazing, inappropriate methods of agricultural practice, etc. for choosing Attappady. All these have contributed to the indiscriminate removal of dense forest cover of this area since the second quarter of this century. However, with the influx of settlers, process of deforestation in Attappady became extensive. The new form of cultivation brought by companies and factories requires forest clearance, with which there is an increase in the procedure of clearance of trees and forest in the rural space of the country. This has led to a large scale erosion and low productivity in the occupied land of this area. Deforestation as a consequence of inappropriate forest management and unhealthy human interactions has slide down to a semi-desert within a few kilometers of the lush evergreen forests of Muthikulam and silent valley ranges. After the plundering of the forest of Attappady, severe practice of different types of cultivation is being practiced due to which there is a destruction of the forest regions. Continuous ploughing and weak terracing resulted in top soil erosion on an extensive scale.
They are least concerned about the ecological nature of the area. In the keen struggle to hold on their land and build up their resource base, tribes of this region have put all their energy into the land indiscriminately and regardless of its environmental consequences. Thus the new cultivation practices, along with deforestation,‘ intensified the process of deterioration of the fertile lands of Attappady. The extensive shift of lrulas and Mudugas towards settler type cultivation, mainly for the need of money, has created an extensive patch of denudation near their settlements, village, and fragile upper reaches. In these areas tribes began practicing cultivation of crops like tapioca and cotton, which is acutely unsuitable to the areas. For many years, the settlers have exploited the ignorance and illiteracy of tribes, and plundered their resource. Instead of leaping from this bitter experience, they are still seeking financial help from the exploiters, thus aiding and abetting the destructive process even further.
Tribal culture is cognate with tribal economy, and their economic system can be understood only within the purview of cultural factors. In the conventional wisdom of economics, economic factors like social and cultural relations are considered non-essential, though they are the tribal reality of the very organization of their economic process. The traditional tribal economy is generally based on forest and characterized by simple technology. Tribal culture and forest have been inseparable entities. Both have been inter-dependent and inter-related. Forest has played a significant role in shaping the social, economic, religious, political and cultural systems of Indian tribal societies. The system by which human resources and natural resources are governed is known as economy. The tribal economy is strictly dependent on the forest because economic institutions like production, consumption, distribution, market, trade, labour etc all is related to forest. Tribals in general and tribals in Attappady are not like general masses. Their main food items are ragi, thina, chama etc. which they cultivate through shifting cultivation. In addition to this, forest has provided them many resources for meeting their life. These items obtained from the forest plays a significant role in controlling and maintaining the health of tribals. But due to the destruction of forest and environmental degradation, they began to face shortage of these items. Lack of rain and droughts caused damage to their traditional agricultural system and as a result of this they lost their traditional food habits, which affected their health and living conditions. Hunting , Food gathering, Collection of Minor Forest Produce, Collection of fuel and fodder, Artisan activities, Shifting cultivation was the traditional economic structure of tribals in Attappady.