Dapchhuah is a village located on the bank of Tut River where the National Highway 44A passes through. With a total population of 1089 and 255 houses, the percentage of Scheduled Tribe is around 98.94%. More than 50% of the population practice river bank farming. Other than river bank farming. Wet Rice Cultivation, Jhum Cultivation are still prevailing in this village, however rich river natural resources have offered this village an alternative to sustain their livelihood. Apart from agriculture, other sources of income include natural resources like river sand, fish, river-snail, and bamboo.

Dapchhuah village is known for their conservation of aquatic life in the river. Approximately 1 kilometre length of the river in the village is conserved by the village councils and NGO’s. As per the report of the respondent, conservation of this river has a huge impact on maintaining ecological balance in this river and making the livelihood sustainable especially for the river livelihood dependent.

The village has a market beside the bridge (Tut Bridge) where some of their agricultural products and river products were sold mainly for the traveller and the resident. Apart from that around 80% of their agricultural products are sold to the Aizawl market.

Agriculture Scenario:

As the village is located on the bank of a river, the village has a huge agricultural potential. Most of the agricultural practices are done on the bank of rivers which are usually in the WRC area, the farmers preferred plantation of vegetables rather than Wet Rice Cultivation due to lower cost of production and high income. However, most of the agricultural farmlands in Dapchhuah are owned by people from the neighbouring village of Rawpuichhip. The farmers in this village usually rent the land for a cost of half of their harvest. The major crops grown are crowder pea, pumpkin and other Rabi crops. As per the report of respondent, one farmer usually grows around one quintal of seeds annually, however most of the seeds are bought privately by the farmer due insufficient supply. The crops grown are usually harvested for the whole season and the   harvested crops are generally transported by a vehicle and sold at Aizawl or local market. The agricultural season is generally from September to April, due to inaccessibility of the area agricultural practices ceased during monsoon season.

The respondent has reported that the farmers have no problem regarding the market on their agricultural products, the middlemen form Aizawl come every last day of the week to buy in bulk and transport their product to Aizawl local market.

Needs

1.Road Infrastructure

The biggest hindrance in their farming is poor road infrastructure. The agricultural lands are located upto 10 km from the village. Almost all the farm roads are linked roads. Poor condition of  roads especially during monsoon make the agricultural land inaccessible for the farmers and make the farmers unable to practice farming during monsoon season. Therefore, better road infrastructure will not only reduce the cost of transportation but also make the farmers able to practice farming even during monsoon season.

2.Seed

The major crops grown in this area are crowder pea, pumpkin, cabbage and other vegetable crops. As per the report, the annual seed requirement per farmer is usually 20kg in pumpkin, 50kg in crowder pea. However, due to insufficient supply of seed, the farmers usually buy seed privately, which has caused higher cost of production for the farmers. Therefore, sufficient supply of certified quality seed will increase the productivity of their land which in turn increases their income due to high Cultivable Command Area (CCA).

3.Irrigation

 Although the village has a high Cultivable Command Area, very limited areas are under irrigation, this has caused reduction in the production per unit area. As  most of the area is located on the bank of the river (Tut River) and there are a lot of perennial rivers located near the CCA,  there is a huge potential for irrigation however, due to the unfavourable location of the river, there is no possibility for gravity irrigation. With Scientific method of irrigation viz. Solar water pump, Drip irrigation, Sprinkler irrigation the production per unit area of this CCA can be doubled.

4.Mechanization

Most of the agricultural practices in this area are done manually by the farmers, as per the report, some of the farmers used manually operated power tillers before sowing the seed however, due to limited availability of power tillers only some of the farmers tilled their land. As most of the agricultural practices are done on flat land, there is a huge potential for farm mechanisation on soil preparation, sowing, harvesting, plant protection etc. Increased mechanisation will reduce the farmers cost of production and even boost their income.