Bamboo shoots, jute leaves, colocasia leaves, and bitter berries are just some of the fresh produce this market offers, now under threat as uncertain climate and shrinking forests affect growing cycles.
In the landscapes surrounding the Haflong market in Assam, one can see patches of burned ground, as often happens during jhum cultivation. In the dry winter months, women farmers prepare parcels of land for cultivation by cutting and selectively burning residual vegetation to dry the soil. In the monsoon months, seeds are sown rotationally—first tubers, then cereals, then vegetables—with almost all tasks done by women or jointly with men. Ash from the burnt vegetation provides nutrients to the crops. When the crops ripen, women farmers from the fertile lands neighbouring Dima Hasao journey with their harvest to Haflong.
“Not only do I sell pumpkin, bottle gourd, cucumber, ridge gourd, and ash gourd, but I also grow them myself,” says Baidi Thaosen, a 45-year-old seller from the Dimasa community, referring to the weekly vegetable market that sits every Saturday, alongside the more permanent Haflong Market. Dressed in traditional mekhalas, women sellers from the Dimasa, Zeme, Hmar, Kuki, and Karbi communities sell a variety of fresh greens and fruits, harvested or collected just a day prior in their nearby villages of Dibarai, Saron, and Ardaopur, among others, as well as dried fish, firewood, and bamboo products.
The main Haflong Market is open throughout the week, where one can buy groceries, vegetables, clothes, shoes, and utensils. The weekly market, meanwhile, has a dedicated walled space near the main market area, where sellers set up their produce. Limited space and ad-hoc organisation mean commerce often spills onto adjoining pavements, where customers arrive in throngs, parking autorickshaws and cars mere metres away from the fresh greens. Vendors arrive as early as 5 am—with customers following from approximately 7:30 am—and wrap up around 6 pm.
While vegetables are available in the main Haflong Market too, the uniqueness of the Saturday weekly market lies in the fresh, hyperlocal, and seasonal produce women vendors offer, most of which is produced through jhum cultivation. According to Jidimala Garlosa, a Dimasa seller in her mid-40s from Jatinga Khasia, it is this produce—sweet pumpkins, fleshy bottle gourd, cucumbers, as well as ash and ridge gourd—that compels people to visit this market. Many of the customers travel from outside Haflong to procure their weekly produce, including nearby cities such as Lumding and towns such as Lanka, with some even travelling as far as Silchar, located two hours away. “You city people do not get to eat fresh vegetables; that’s why you travel such great distances to come here,” Jidimala says with a smile. “They are grown without chemicals. That is the main attraction of this market,” Baidi adds.
Along with cultivated vegetables, the market is also a treasure trove of wild produce: mushrooms, edible ferns such as fiddlehead fern, and medicinal herbs like brahmi and pennywort. Rengpi Toran, a 50-year-old Karbi farmer and forager from Boro Longlai village, says that the timing of rainfall and the appearance of new shoots act as signs to foragers, communicating when and how edible plants can be collected safely and sustainably. This knowledge, she says, is passed down from one generation of women to another. “We know which plants are ready to be eaten after the first rains, like mogongrema (Begonia roxburghii) or the khutra (Amaranthus spinosus). Their shoots and leaves are used.” For Rengpi, the market is the final stage of a long ecological relationship with the forests and its seasons. Indigenous women farmers, including Rengpi, sustain this relationship through their inherited knowledge of when to harvest wild foods, and how much—this knowledge shapes what reaches the market each week.
During our visit in April this year, the market was lush with the spoils of summer. Unripe jackfruit, banana flower, fiddlehead fern, pumpkin shoots, stink beans, and betel nuts were in prime demand and supply, and the fibrous flesh of the pineapple filled the open space with a sweet, citrus-like aroma.
“For people living in cities and towns, [even if they had access to these fields and this diversity], they wouldn’t know how to get these greens. We have the knowledge,” says Jidimala. In Dima Hasao, the weekly market becomes the link between the ecological knowledge of the rural and the demands of the urban. It keeps alive the diversity of Dima Hasao’s food basket, believes Nandita Hasnu, a 20-year-old regular at the market from the Dimasa community. “Our Dimasa food has a variety of flavours: spicy, tangy, bitter, sour. The produce from the fields sold in the market reflects these flavours,” she says.
Shrinking Forest Cover Begets Shrinking Market Variety
However, women vendors are increasingly facing challenges in sourcing wild produce. Rengpi shares, “Earlier, there was more variety. Now, certain [local varieties] have become difficult to find.” The traditional practice of foraging for wild foods is dwindling because forests and hills have been disappearing throughout Dima Hasao. Between 2001 and 2023, Assam has seen a 100 percent reduction in relative tree cover, with its two hill districts, Karbi Anglong and Dima Hasao, accounting for 62 percent of forest loss. A portion of this can be attributed to development projects in the region, such as the building of the Lumding–Silchar railway route, which was inaugurated in 2015. Flattening the steep hills of Dima Hasao—covering 462 hectares—the route’s construction destroyed farmland, orchards, and homesteads, causing excavation-triggered landslides, all while locals received little to no compensation, despite being promised adequate relief. The harm was not only to villagers’ livelihoods, but also to the region’s rich biodiversity.
In Dima Hasao, the weekly market becomes the link between the ecological knowledge of the rural and the demands of the urban.
Recent state-permitted entry of corporate grabbing over Dima Hasao’s land has further threatened this agrobiodiversity. Over 9,000 bighas (about 1,200 hectares), for example, have been allotted for limestone mining, with more carved out for use by cement companies in Dima Hasao’s Umrangso. The impact on forest cover and, therefore, the vast biodiversity they hold, is predicted to be severe. Additionally, a hydropower project in partnership with Adani Green, a renewable energy company owned by the Adani group, is expected to dissolve large parcels of land used for jhum agriculture, displacing three villages in the process.
The ramifications of irresponsible, profit-oriented development projects on the food basket are dire and have been further exacerbated by uncertain, changing climates. The variety of wild and seasonal produce, for instance, has been diminishing due to associated ecological vulnerability caused by changing patterns of rainfall, rising temperatures, and prolonged drier periods. Neihliu Newme, a 55-year-old Zeme Naga seller from Laisong, said, “Earlier, we knew exactly when each plant would grow after the rain. Now the rain itself is erratic, and it has become difficult to collect things like mushrooms and bamboo shoots.” The chain from the forest to the field to the market is becoming increasingly fragile, and women like Baidi, Jidimala, Rengpi, and Neihliu find fewer seasonal varieties to sell.
What We Lose Without Jhum
Beyond wild produce, agriculture has also been affected. Jhum has declined in Dima Hasao as a result of government policies and agricultural universities focusing on wet rice or settled cultivation. The Assam Agricultural Policy (2004), for instance, “recognised hill agriculture—another term for shifting cultivation—but only to replace it with ‘alternative high-income generating avenues like horticulture crops’”, finds Vincent Darlong, Programme Officer in the India Country Office of the International Fund for Agricultural Development, in this chapter on the impact of state policies on Northeast India’s shifting cultivators.
“Earlier, we knew exactly when each plant would grow after the rain. Now the rain itself is erratic, and it has become difficult to collect things like mushrooms and bamboo shoots.”
Policy interventions such as the Assam Forest Policy (2004) discourage jhum cultivation by raising awareness about the benefits of settled cultivation, providing subsidies for farmers practising settled cultivation, generating employment outside of jhum, and promoting plantations on fallow jhum land. This is despite higher species and soil richness, as well as water-holding capacities on fallow jhum land, than on land on which permanent agriculture is practised.
“Jhum gives us food for the year, but we also need cash for survival. The more we work for cash, the less time we have for jhum,” Neihliu says, referring to the now-repealed Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA). While MGNREGA and the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (PMGSY) do not directly discourage jhum cultivation, they provide alternative employment and livelihood opportunities that may reduce the time and labour available for jhum.
The chronology of jhum cultivation—to start the cultivating cycle with yams and sweet potatoes, which protect the soil, followed by cereals like rice and maize, and finally vegetables—suggests that indigenous forms of food production prioritise the soil’s sustainability. Dietary diversity under jhum cultivation is likely to be higher as it produces a variety of food crops as compared to monoculture or cash cropping.
While state-led programmes employ the narrative that jhum cultivation is unsustainable and damaging to soil and forest regeneration, the advised alternative is cultivating typically permanent monoculture cash crops, such as rubber, orange, and tea. What these policies ignore is monocrops’ susceptibility to climate-based failure, consequent livelihood and food insecurity faced by farmers, and the adverse impact on regional food diversity. The push for monocropping cash crops on jhum land, making farmers vulnerable to market forces and depleting soil health, reflects the commercialisation of agriculture and neoliberal turn to regional food systems.
The shifts taking place in the forest and fields are beginning to appear in Haflong’s Saturday market. For women like Baidi, Jidimala, Rengpi, and Neihliu, the future of the market depends on the fields and forests that surround it. As forest cover reduces, development projects alter land relations, and jhum gives way to settled agriculture, this connection is being disrupted. “We don’t know for how long we can depend on the market for survival,” says Rengpi. As of now, the women return each Saturday with what the forests and fields give them so generously.
Rituparna Patgiri is an Assistant Professor of Sociology in the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences (HSS), Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Guwahati.
Ritwika Patgiri is a Senior Research Associate at LEAD at Krea University and has recently submitted her PhD at the Faculty of Economics, South Asian University (SAU), New Delhi.
Editor: Oishika Roy
Copy Editor: Khorshed Deboo
