Knowledge of Chakma Women on Shifting Cultivation: A Comparative Study between Bangladesh and India

Shifting cultivation is the primary livelihood of the Chakma people where women participation is visibly prominent. Hence, this study comparatively examined the knowledge of Chakma women participating in shifting cultivation in Bangladesh and India. Three hundred respondents were selected following stratified disproportionate random sampling. Data were collected using interview schedule and analyzed through descriptive statistics. Majority of respondents were middle age, illiterate, had medium-sized families with small sized farms and an annual income below their expenditure. Most of them have good knowledge on primitive shifting cultivation, but possessed poor knowledge on modern agricultural practices like IPM/ICM and balanced use of fertilizer. Fruit gardening, banana and turmeric cultivation were the key promising alternatives in Bangladesh, but in India; rubber plantation, fruit gardening, turmeric cultivation and lemon plantation were the main alternatives to shifting cultivation. Land scarcity, rodent attack, insect infestation and disease outbreak were the major problems in shifting cultivation in Bangladesh, whereas low price of products, lack of irrigation facility and land scarcity were the major problems in shifting cultivation in India. Thus, awareness campaigns on scientific use of land and need based skill training addressing gender issues may be designed for alternative livelihood promotion in both the countries.