Agricultural Geography and Geographies of Development

This paper mainly deals with the review articles on indigenous aromatic rice varieties and finally concentrated on the evaluation of the cultivation of a specific scented landrace named Tulaipanji in Uttar Dinajpur District of West Bengal, India. Cultivation of indigenous aromatic rice varieties in its natural habitat plays a vital role in maintaining the ecological balance in the rice field ecology in one way and also develops the farmers' economy in another way. Overall, it supports the sustainable agriculture. While cultivation of HYVs damages the rice field ecology by changing the cropping sequence and by accumulating very high amounts of chemical inputs in soil, water and also in plant's body, in this situation, cultivation of indigenous aromatic rice varieties is too much significant. The review has been done on the basis of national and international research works. In India, the main emphasis is given upon seed morphology, genetic diversity, chemical and genetic basis of aroma, yield potentiality, advanced breeding techniques, conservation and restoration of indigenous aromatic rice varieties. In a good number of works, internationally, emphasis is given upon innovations of new aromatic rice, Geographical Indication and trade related aspects of Intellectual Property Rights. The geology, geomorphology, and properties of soil horizon are different from one rice field to another upon which the aromatic quality of indigenous rice dependent. The natural habitats of different indigenous aromatic rice varieties are different. The identification and delineation of the ecological niche of the indigenous aromatic rice varieties are the first and foremost criteria for the evaluation of indigenous aromatic rice cultivation. Therefore, the study will be auxiliary to plan the sustainable cultivation of indigenous aromatic rice varieties. The whole literature review has been done under the following segments:-1. Conceptual Aspects: Rice is one of the most important food crops of India. As a major crop, cultivation of rice is occupied nearly 31% of the total Net Sown Area of the country (Annual Report of Department of Agriculture, Cooperation and Farmers Welfare, 2015-16). According to the Cambridge Dictionary, the term Indigenous means existing naturally or, having always lived a place (https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/indigenous). Sometimes, the term Landrace is also used in place of the word Indigenous. A Landrace is a domesticated, locally adapted, traditional variety of a species of animal or plant that has developed over time, through adaptation to its natural and cultural environment of agriculture and pastoralism, and due to isolate on from other populations of the species (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landrace). According to the Cambridge Dictionary, the term Aromatic means having a pleasant smell (https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/aromatic). The cultivated rice, Oryza sativa originated in South East Asia in humid tropical climate and under influence of local environment and farmers need have evolved into 88,681 different variety, out of that 55,615 are land races, 1,171 are wild races and 32,895 are other varieties (Mishra & Sinha, 2012). Since the time of domestication of wild races of rice varieties, farmers have started the evolution of thousand of rice landraces which are later cultivated in their natural habitat for thousands of years. Thus, they had adapted themselves to that natural environment and become the local variety of that area. Generations after generations, farmers are traditionally cultivated these indigenous rice varieties in their natural environment by maintaining their cropping sequence seasonally.

Tulaipanji is one of the oldest indigenous aromatic rice varieties in the physiographic division of the North Bengal plain of West Bengal, India. Raiganj CD Block of Uttar Dinajpur District, located in this physiographic division is very famous for the cultivation of this rice variety. Cultivation of this rice has been done in this natural habitat for more than 100 years back. Thus, this rice variety adapted itself in its microhabitat or niche. The fundamental niche of this rice was spread in major parts of the Raiganj CD Block. But the introduction of the cultivation of HYVs of rice mainly Swarna started to decrease the fundamental niche of Tulaipanji. Cultivation of Swarna requires very high chemical inputs which change the soil properties in such a way that badly affects the growth and aromatic quality of the Tulaipanji rice. As a result of which, the vast fundamental niche of this rice, converted into small restricted realized niche out of which cultivation of this rice become totally ignored. This study incorporates the using GIS and GPS techniques besides the intensive field study to delineate the niche zones. The main aim of this paper is to highlight the causes behind the conversion of the fundamental niche of the Tulaipanji rice to the realized niche in the study area as well as its further impacts.

There is a shifting paradigm within the Tea Industry in India from colonial corporate ownership to small-scale individual ownership production system. It has expanded from few traditional tea growing states to fifteen states in the country in the last few decades. Almost all the states in NorthEast India grow tea today. As per Tea Board of India, there are 161238 numbers of Small Tea Growers (STGs) with tea cultivation of 164396 hectares contributing roughly around 30-35 percent of tea production. In most of the cases, they are the first generation unemployed youth into tea cultivation and enterprise development. On the other hand, the organized tea sector has 1686 tea estates with tea area of 416027 hectares. The labour relations are well defined in organized sector and also covered under the Plantation Labour Act. But the unorganized sector, the labour relations are evolving and new set of organizations like Bought-Leaf Factories (BLFs), Tea Producing Societies (SHGs), Confederation of Indian Small Tea Growers Associations (CISTA) and State-Level Associations etc are being emerging for the safeguard of livelihoods across the country and in NorthEast India. There are around 5.64 lakh families and 2.51 million people are associated in the unorganized sector of tea industry in India (Author's Estimation) besides 1.25 million of workers employed directly in organized sector of tea industry and 2.50 million people are indirectly dependant. It goes without saying that the quality of employment in organized tea industry differs from small-scale cultivation which may be better termed as Unorganised Sector. Livelihoods in this sector seem to be more vulnerable and their engagement with the market has series of middlemen and buffer zones. The Tea Producing Societies (Self-Help Groups) are yet to be organized as viable units and establish their credentials and visibility in the market particularly in auctions. The question of under-recognition and low level of entrepreneurship skills always push them into a situation where buyer-driven market fixes the prices of their product (intermediary product i.e. green leaf). It highly reflects on the quality of their engagements, insecure livelihoods and compromising with overall quality of life and unexplored potentials within the tea industry.

Use of chemical fertilizers in agriculture is now become a common trend to the farmers. Without testing the soil, farmers often applied a huge amount of fertilizers for the greed of more production. Rich fertile alluvial soil, gentle slope, humid tropical climate and abundant rainfall in the study area encourages the cultivation of rice as a major crop here. Now-a-days, rice cultivars of this area do not show any interest in the cultivation of the traditional rice varieties, rather they show interest in the cultivation of HYVs of rice by using a huge amount of chemical fertilizers. Without understanding the soil nutrient requirement, they applied more and more fertilizers to increase the yield of rice. Even they applied fertilizers to such traditional rice varieties which do not require any fertilizers. Intensive field survey in the rice fields and interview with the rice cultivars reveals the facts that use of these fertilizers, though increased the yield of rice in its initial sta...

Use of chemical fertilizers in agriculture is now become a common trend to the farmers. Without testing the soil, farmers often applied a huge amount of fertilizers for the greed of more production. Rich fertile alluvial soil, gentle slope, humid tropical climate and abundant rainfall in the study area encourages the cultivation of rice as a major crop here. Now-a-days, rice cultivars of this area do not show any interest in the cultivation of the traditional rice varieties, rather they show interest in the cultivation of HYVs of rice by using a huge amount of chemical fertilizers. Without understanding the soil nutrient requirement, they applied more and more fertilizers to increase the yield of rice. Even they applied fertilizers to such traditional rice varieties which do not require any fertilizers. Intensive field survey in the rice fields and interview with the rice cultivars reveals the facts that use of these fertilizers, though increased the yield of rice in its initial stage, but at present the yield of rice as well as fertility of soil is lessening day by day. The aromatic quality of the famous indigenous Tulaipanji rice of this area is also decreases because of the use of chemical fertilizers. High value of pH is found when the testing is done on the water samples of the waterlogged rice fields and surrounding ponds. This study attempts to focus on the extent of the use of chemical fertilizers in rice cultivation in the rich alluvial fertile land of the study area and also highlight its ongoing impacts. Testing of the soil of the rice field in regular basis and cultivation of only selected high yielding and traditional rice varieties in organic way will be the better choice to reduce the adverse effect of the fertilizers.