(Jyotiba dhangars from Kolhapur, travelling to Wai, in Maharashtra's Satara district.)
The rapid loss of tree cover in western Maharashtra, together with overgrazing, has reduced the carrying capacity of the land for the animal herds of the pastorals. Many pastoral groups can no longer sustain themselves on their traditional animal husbandry. The goat, the animal most adapted to degraded vegetation, has become an important herd animal – dhangars in earlier times maintained buffalo and cattle too. The dhangars have also become semi-sedentary, which has hampered their following of a rotational circuit of grazing. The only new resource which has become available is the increased demand of smallholder farmers for manure. Dhangar weavers used to enjoy a good market for their woollen and cotton blankets but mechanisation has all but ruined this occupation, and what market may survive for woven blankets is threatened by the steady impoverishment of the rural population. (Adapted from ‘The Ecological Basis of the Geographical Distribution of the Dhangars: A Pastoral Caste-Cluster of Maharashtra’, by Kailash C Malhotra and Madhav Gadgil, in South Asian Anthropologist, 1981)
https://makanaka.wordpress.com/tag/manure/
The rapid loss of tree cover in western Maharashtra, together with overgrazing, has reduced the carrying capacity of the land for the animal herds of the pastorals. Many pastoral groups can no longer sustain themselves on their traditional animal husbandry. The goat, the animal most adapted to degraded vegetation, has become an important herd animal – dhangars in earlier times maintained buffalo and cattle too. The dhangars have also become semi-sedentary, which has hampered their following of a rotational circuit of grazing. The only new resource which has become available is the increased demand of smallholder farmers for manure. Dhangar weavers used to enjoy a good market for their woollen and cotton blankets but mechanisation has all but ruined this occupation, and what market may survive for woven blankets is threatened by the steady impoverishment of the rural population. (Adapted from ‘The Ecological Basis of the Geographical Distribution of the Dhangars: A Pastoral Caste-Cluster of Maharashtra’, by Kailash C Malhotra and Madhav Gadgil, in South Asian Anthropologist, 1981)
https://makanaka.wordpress.com/tag/manure/
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