Socio-economic Analysis Based on Energy Input and Output of Mixed Cropping Systems of Bhabhar Region (Shiwalik Range of Kumaun Himalaya, India)

In the present study, the status of energy efficiency and economy of existing agroecosystems in the Shiwalik range of Kumaun Himalaya were assessed. A large number of plant species were cultivated/maintained by the local inhabitants to conserve the diversity in agroecosystems. Agriculture was the main source of economy of the villagers. The agroforestry system provides many ecological services to enhance the socio-economic condition of the farmers. In addition, home garden is another land use system, which is very common in the area. All collected data from agricultural (inputs and outputs) were calculated and converted to energy values by using constants. In the present study, average consumption of annual energy inputs in agroforestry system (103646 MJ/ha) was approximately three times more as compared to home gardens (43056 MJ/ha). Uses of chemical fertilizers and pesticides increased the inputs manifolds. Average annual energy outputs obtained from agroforestry system (434116 MJ/ha) which was seven times more to the home gardens (57008 MJ/ha). Energy output/input ratio in agroforestry varied from 2.26 to 9.06 while in home gardens range speckled between 1.20 and 1.47. In terms of monetary budget, annual return from agroforestry and home garden systems were ₹ 95077/ha and 4201/ha, respectively. From the present study, it can be concluded that agroecosystems provides the good monetary benefits and source of employment to the villagers. The possible benefits of agriculture are raising income and thus improving status of livelihoods in Bhabhar region of Kumaun Himalaya. Article History Received: 05 June 2018 Accepted: 02 August 2018


Introduction
In the Himalayan province, an ecosystem functioning as a self-governing entity of economic activity and is consisted of agroecosystem, forest ecosystem, households, livestock, and market support 1 . Therefore, it is most important in a village ecosystem to observe the type and level of linkage in various components in order to harness the maximum benefits and proper management of the resource availability 2 .
Uttarakhand is primarily an agricultural state and developed as ecological brand equity 3 . This ecological brand owing to the tree stands that helps in several way like leaf litter from the tree enriches the organic carbon ultimately C/N ratio and maintain the soil fertility 4,5 . In the Himalayan Mountains, agriculture is closely linked with animal husbandry and natural forests. There is an urgent need for intensified conservation efforts as well as growing products and generating services in agro-ecosystems 6 . The high energy input is a major problem of an agroecosystems. In the assessment of energy budget, repeat crop failure and addition of inorganic fertilizers added the energy input in an agroecosystem. After the green revolution, the trend of agriculture inputs by chemicals was increased significantly. The farmers use abundant amount of chemical fertilizers, herbicides, pesticides etc in their crop land without taking the considerable level. By this act the crop increase many folds but the net cost of energy input has also increased simultaneously. To overcome this problem, as the agro-system overall is input intensive 7 adaptation of traditional resource management practices such as agroforestry system may potentially provide options for improvement in livelihoods through lowering of energy inputs and simultaneous production of food, fodder, medicines and firewood as well as mitigation impact of climate change 8,9,10,11,12 . The agroforestry is a dynamic, ecologically based natural resource management system that through the integration of trees/woody perennials in farms and rangelands diversifies and sustains production for increased social, economic and environmental benefits 13,14 .
In recent years, agroforestry is emerging as the promising land use option to sustain agricultural productivity and livelihoods of farmers 15 along with mitigate the adverse impact of changing climatic conditions 16 .
Various studies conducted in the Central Himalayan region revealed that the agriculture practices require massive consumption of forest resources 17,18,19,20,21 . In plain district of the state, agriculture turns up as the major source of the economy and revenue. Therefore, present study is an attempt to analyze the agroecosystems of Kumaun Himalayan Bhabhar belt of Uttarakhand state with the objectives to assess the status, agrodiversity, energy and economic efficiency of agroecosystem and their management practices.

Material and Methods Study Area
The Kumaun Himalayan Bhabhar region spread over a geographical area of 51125 km 2 (77 0 34'to 81 0 02' E longitude and 28 0 43 to 31 0 27' N latitude). The present study was confined only in Nainital district because Bhabhar belt is only represented by this district. They constitute the foot of the Himalayas, where the streams descend on to the plains. The Sub-Himalaya geographically corresponds to the Siwalik range (or the Churia range in Nepal) -foothills ranging in elevation from 250-800 m. This zone is made up of 10-km thick succession of sandstone and mudstone shed from the Himalayan mountains, and deposited by rivers, especially since the Miocene (over the past 24 million years) 22 . Total four representative villages (30 families in each village) of Bhabhar belt i.e., Padampur (Village 1), Rampur, (Village 2), Fatehpur (Village 3) and Semalkhaliya (Village 4) were selected within 10-45 km radius from Haldwani in Nainital district from Bhabhar belt of Kumaun Himalaya.

Climate
The climate was monsoonal sub tropical and characterized by marked seasonality. The year can be divided into three seasons viz., (i) the summer season (April-June): experienced very hot and dry with the temperature reached beyond 42 o C, (ii) the rainy season (July-September): where humidity soars up to 95%, make the weather very humid and (iii) the winter season (November-February): when the minimum temperature stoops down to 4 o C with the dense fog where humidity level drops down to 57%. February constitute the transitional month between winter-summer and October between rainywinter seasons.

Soil
Soil samples were collected randomly from the upper soil depth (0-15 cm). Soil samples were thoroughly mixed to form a composite sample for each village. The collected soils were packed separately in plastic bags and brought to the laboratory. The course materials (stones, roots and plant litters) were removed manually. The soil samples were air-dried to analyze the soil physico-chemical properties.
The soil texture was determined through the sieving of soil by different net size (sand 0.02-2.0 mm, silt 0.002-0.02 mm, clay< 0.002 mm). Moisture content was calculated on dry weight basis, water holding capacity (WHC), bulk density (bD) and porosity were estimated 23 . Chemical properties of the soil i.e. pH, total organic carbon 24 , total nitrogen 25 and phosphorus 26 were determined by the standard methods.

Methods
The information about the live stock, agricultural land, seeds, fertilizer, pesticides, animal dung, humananimal labour, fuel wood, fodder consumption and agricultural input/output of the households were collected through formal discussions with adult members or head of the family. The information was collected through a field survey using semistructured interview schedules 27,28 . 30 random households, as a representative in each village, were selected for the estimation of inputs/outputs from agroforestry system as well as home gardens. Estimates of food, fodder and fuel wood consumption and products supplied to/purchased from the market were derived based on seasonal observations. Durations of sedentary, moderate and heavy works by males and females in various activities and bullock power use were noted. All collected data from agricultural (inputs and outputs) were calculated and converted to energy values by using constants 29 (Table 1).Standard energy values of various inputs and outputs used for budgeting were calculated 29 . Hours spent by males and females for sedentary, moderate and heavy works were multiplied by per hour energetic value of a given type of work and the products summed up to obtain total human labour input per day in a given land use system. Similarly, duration of bullock power use was multiplied by energetic value of bullock power to compute total energy of this input. Energy inputs through seeds and manure and outputs through edible yields, fuel wood, fodder and by product were calculated by multiplying the amount of an input/output related to a given land use and its standard energetic value.
Monetary values of various inputs and outputs were calculated on the basis of buying and selling price (The government prices were taken for the calculation of the food grains while region/local price were considered for the byproducts and vegetables) in the villages during the entire study period.

Results and Discussion Human and Livestock Population
The village populations are the major consumers of the nutrients moving with foods cultivated within an agroecosystem 30 . On an average of 88 families having 544 human populations having 6 family sizes reside in each village.
Since agricultural production is always a prime importance due to food security the agroecosystem was traditional type and livestock play the major share in it 31 . The average live stock population was 198 constituted by 16.96% cow, 16.27% buffaloes, 10% goats, 7.21% bullocks and 49.02% hen ( Table 2). Livestock considered as the resources asset, which provides labour, manure, milk, fuel etc. In addition, they also play a crucial role in enhancing social capital or neighborhood of the families by sharing by products. As the farmland systems are fragile and heavily depended on the energy input by naturally or artificially for the production 1 . Here, the livestock play a prominent role in recycling or transferring of nutrients through the forest to the farmland.   19,35 .

Cropping Systems
Basically the farming in this region preferred sole and mixed cropping. Under sole cropping only a single herbaceous crop cultivated without intercropping with others while in mixed cropping the farmers sowing the many crops into a same piece of land. Some patterns of mixed cropping, which are commonly adopted by the farmers in the studied area are given: Jayad-rabi (August-January) and in summer season under Jayad-kharif (Feb-May). Kumaun Himalayan region is agriculturally rich with a large number of economically important cereal crops belonging to family Poaceae that serve as a staple food. Total 5 cereal, 2 pseudo-cereal, 2 millet crops, 13 pulse crops, 10 spice crops, 5 oil-yielding crops and 30 species of vegetables were prominent in the region including seasonal and regional vegetables ( Table 4). In the present study, total numbers of cultivated crops were listed comparatively low in the earlier study for entire Kumaun Himalayan region 21 and higher as reported by many researchers 14,35,36 .
List of some most frequently used improved varieties of different crops and fruit trees are given in table 5.

Plant Utilization Pattern of Associated Species in Agroecosystems
Scaling up agriculture potential is not much challenging task if provided agricultural extension efforts are directed with suitable site-specific agroforestry model 37 as it supplies the resources in sustainable manner 3 . Agriculture is heavily dependent on energy flows from uncultivated lands, which clearly indicated that this system is closed, self-contained and self-reliant 38 . Total 44 plants, which were associated with the agroecosystms of the villages, were used by the local people to fulfill the daily requirements of fuel, fodder, fiber, fruit, medicine and timber etc ( Table 6). These plant species belonging to 37 families in which Lamiaceae contributed the highest number of species (5) followed by Poaceae (4). In tree component, A. catechu and M. indica considered as the multipurpose trees by providing fuel wood, medicine and timber, G. optiva and F. glomerata as the best quality fodder, D. sissoo as the quality wood for house construction, Eucalyptus and Poplus sp. were the best quality trees for the commercial purpose. Out of 18 tree spices, 8 species were found exclusively in wild, 6 species in agroforestry system and rest species were common to both wild and agroforestry system. Eleven types of fruit orchards (Table 4) were also found in the studied villages in which M. indica and L. chinensis were the dominant. Reduction of crop yields due to farm trees is reconciled with availability of fodder, fuelwood and other non-timber forest products near farm lands 10,39,40,41 . Total 8 shrub species were associated with the agroecosystem in which only 2 species (H. rosa-sinensis and S. indicum) were cultivated and remaining was wild. L. camara and S. cordifolia were preferably used by the local people particularly in tomato cultivation as the supporting material. These species were also used as quality fuel due to their fast and easily burning properties. Several varieties of multipurpose herbs were also found in the studied villages such as aloe, mint, hemp, holi basil, opium, giloe etc. A total of 25 herb species (wild=15 and cultivated=10) and 3 climber species (wild=2 and common to both wild and agroforestry system=1) were utilized by the villagers for various purpose.

Energy Budgets in Agroecosystems
The demand bioenergy is accelerating drastically day by day due to huge increase in population pressure 31 . Average annual energy input consumption in agroforestry system (103646 MJ/ha) was approximately three times more compared to home gardens (43056 MJ/ha). The energy input in term of human and bullock labour is important in the agroecosystem of any region 42 . Among all the studied villages, consumption of human energy input was highest in village 4, which were 276 MJ/ha in agroforestry and 84 MJ/ha in home garden. Draught power consumption (582 MJ/ha in agroforestry system and 218 MJ/ha in home garden) was also highest in the same village. The major contribution of energy input via human and livestock in village 4 was due to the highest cultivated agriculture landholding and livestock population among all. Total seed input (agroforestry + home garden) was highest observed in village 2, which contributed about 36.80% of the total, probably due to the repeated crop failure as reported by the villagers ( Table 7). The manure and chemical fertilizers increased the energy inputs in agroforestry systems as well as in home gardens. The consumption of annual energy input in the present study was higher than as reported by many researchers for Kumaun Himalayan region 14,35,36 and less than as reported for Garhwal Himalaya 43 . Average annual energy output from agroforestry was 434117 MJ/ha compared to 57008 MJ/ha in home garden. In a study 27491 MJ/ha gross annual energy output was reported from agroecosystem 35 , which was very less compared to the present study due to the small landholdings. At each studied village output/input ratio in agroforestry varied between 2.25 to 2.74, which was observed the same results (0.26 to 3.99) in another study 44 for Himalaya, apart from village 4 (9.06), which was much greater than the reported range between 0.11 and 2.57 for agroforestry systems 43,45,46 while in other study reported a little bit high range (1.57-4.14) for home garden system 35 . In the present study, the output-input ratio was varied of 2.25 to 9.06 in agroforestry. The agroecosystem studies in Central Himalaya indicated that agriculture in the area can be sustainable if pressure on forestland can be reduced. This could be achieved by reviving the support system and each hectare of agriculture land should be supported by 10-15 ha of forests 38 .
Among the cereal and pulse crops (6.69±1.57), the maximum seed output-input ratio (Table 8) was observed in wheat cultivation (11.95), which resulted in maximum benefits in terms of production followed by paddy (10.13). In the vegetable cultivation (8.10±2.23), green/fresh vegetable (11.97) maximized the production compared to tuber crops (4.23). In the fruit production (4.26±2.30), the highest ratio was recorded for jackfruit production (15.78), which resulted in high output (production) due to low input requirement followed by mango cultivation (2.39).

Monetary Budget in Agroecosystem
In terms of monetary budget (Table 9), the total input of the agroecosystem (agroforestry + home garden) was ₹28446/ha, in which agroforestry shared about 81% of the total input and remaining 19% of home garden. Human power (₹11926/ha) followed by manure (₹9200/ha) added the highest input in agroecosystem. The total output of the agroecosystem was estimated ₹127724/ha, in which ₹118135/ha was contributed by the agroforestry systems. Collectively (agroforestry + home garden), the maximum output obtained from the byproducts (fruit, milk, meat etc) i.e., about 60% of the total output followed by food grains. The total output from the agroforestry was recorded of ₹118135/ha.  1600  500  2400  1000  2400  1200  4800  1500  Seeds  3500  600  4550  400  2380  500  1500  450  Manure  8000  1600  9000  1700  9500  1200  3000  2800  Total Input  21850  4700  19855  4300  26530  4300  24000  8250  Output  Food grains  25000  900  18000  720  22500  1350  54000  1750  Vegetables  840  660  440  1350  By products  40850  3600  52570  7200  80790  4560  105180 6400  Fuel wood  4500  600  3000  870  2400  660  15000  750  Grass fodder  10500  1050  8750  1225  7000  980  22500  2450  Total out  80850  6990  82320  10675  112690  7990  196680 12700  Net return  59000  2290  62466  6375  86160  3690  172680  The total net return was recorded ₹99278/ha in which agroforestry and home garden contributed about ₹95075 and 4201/ha, respectively. The net return from the Kumaun Himalayan homegarden systems was reported ₹15270/ha 35 , which was much higher than studied home garden in the present study. The similar results were reported by another study 36 , and reported the highest per ha annual productivity or income in agroforestry followed by the home gardens. The total output input ratio indicated that the agroforestry system (5.12) was more beneficial than the home garden (1.78) in Bhabhar belt though, home gardens support more plant diversity as compared to other systems 47,48,49 .
The correlation interpreted that the energy budget of an agroecosystem depends appreciably upon the soil properties (Table 10). The crop production showed highly positive significant correlated with the silt (r=0.923), feasibility of moisture content (r=0.989), carbon (r=0.992) and nitrogen (r=0.965) of the soil while highly negative significant correlation with soil pH (r=-0.974) because all these soil parameters make the soil productive and enhance the crop production 50,51,52,53,54,55 .

Constrains in agriculture
• According to the present scenario, farmers have abandoned their traditional seeds and practices and found themselves dependent on the government and private sector to provide them necessary inputs such as seeds and manure. • Animal husbandry, once an integral and valued part of agriculture, is relegated to secondary importance as chemical fertilizers replaced the dung manure, machines replaced draught power and cattle are kept seen only as factories for milk or meat production.

•
Farmers prefer a crop if it provides them a good monetary returns though it may involve a great deal of labor. On the other hand, wheat and paddy require very low input cost hence their output-input ratio is higher than other cash crops but the actual amount realized is of course lesser than that of other cash crops. It was observed that paddy is more profitable than wheat because fertilizer requirement of paddy was less as compared to wheat 14 .
• After the green revolution the use of chemical fertilizers did catch up fast in Uttarakhand especially in Tarai and Bhabhar region. The farmers have resorted to the practice of using chemical fertilizers (i.e. mainly urea and DAP) and pesticides in a big way to increase the crop yield and profits. The authors were unable to find anyone household which was not using any chemical fertilizer in their farms.
Farmers are not bothered about its harmful impacts because they are getting good monetary returns.

Conclusion
In conclusion, the present study reflects that the farming systems of this region is traditional, sustainable and is seemed quite well. The high level of crop diversity in agroforestry systems were maintained by the farmers through the crop rotation. Agroforestry systems also provide many ecosystem services in a low expenditure with environmental benefits (sequestration of carbon and mitigate the impact of climate change). Therefore, it is recommended from the present study that farmers of the Bhabhar Region of Kumaun Himalaya should preferred agroforestry systems to enhance the socioeconomic status of their livelihood.