ECOLOGY AND ECONOMICS OF DOMESTICATION OF NON-TIMBER FOREST PRODUCTS: AN ILLUSTRATION OF BROOMGRASS IN DARJEELING HIMALAYA

Abstract

Extraction of non-timber forest products (NTFPs) is an effective conservation strategy to safeguard biological diversity while enhancing rural income. However, excessive harvests may lead to the extinction of species populations or alternatively domestication by the rural people. Domestication is likely to be facilitated if the species is adaptable, market demand is greater than the production in natural populations, profitability from cultivation is high, and there are not many job opportunities or sufficient agricultural landholdingwith the forest dwellers. Owing to these circumstances, amliso, a broomgrass (Thysanolaena maxima), has been domesticated in Darjeeling Himalaya during the last three decades. Amliso promotes a sustainable use of fragile and easily degradable lands, provides fuelwood and fodder during lean periods and
generates income from its infructescence, commonly used as broomstick. An amliso plantation has a cycle of about six years in which five annual harvests are taken. Broomstick yield in terms of number of culms, dry matter and length of culms rises up to the third harvest and declines thereafter. A six-year plantation cycle (five harvests) can generate a net revenue of US$ 3374 ha^-1 against a total investment of US$ 1995 ha^-1, a return nearly 1.7 times the investment cost. Human labour accounts for 62% of the total investment. Thus, if the cultivator is self-employed as a labourer, the return goes up to 4.4 times the initial investment. The value addition pattern during movement and processing of broomstick indicates that nearly 35% of the final value realised from the customer reaches the cultivator. We show that this proportion can be raised to 52.5% if the cultivators process broomstick into brooms at the source.