Abstract:

Tribal farmers of hilly watersheds of Korput district are continuing their agricultural operations with traditional knowledge and systems. These systems are suiting with the terrain features of the area, cultural simplicity of the tribals, food habit of the tribes and soil and water resources available for crop production. By using their wisdom, the tribes select the type of crops with appropriate traditional variety and use their own seeds for the next farming season. As the area is rainfed and drought situations are not uncommon, the RWUE of the crops commonly grown in the area and their performance during drought years used to play an important role for their selection by the tribal farmers in their cropping system. The knowledge on RWUE of various crops grown under rainfed condition under traditional farming system and their efficacy during drough years will help the planners and decision makers to choose the right combination of crops to be grown in such areas. The objectives of this study have been chosen as to prioritize the traditionally grown field crops based on RWUE in a rainfed tribal watershed of Koraput district, Odisha and to compare the RWUE of the crops during normal and drought years.