Adivasis and Subsistence Agriculture

Traditionally nearly all communities grow mixed crops of millets in a shifting cultivation practice. Now, these practices are largely discontinued with commercial crops having taken over homestead and marginal lands. The main crops now grown are tea, coffee, vegetables, paddy, banana, ginger, corn and millets. Mixed agriculture has reduced drastically and is not followed as an intensive practice.

However, a persistent problem with agriculture is that it requires investments of time and money; it is rarely remunerable in rain fed regions and crop destruction from wild animals is also a constant threat. Thus agriculture continues to be a major gamble increasing the vulnerability of dependent communities, more so in the drier parts of the biosphere.