Notes on type of land ownership and indigenous
agricultural methods of the Bondo Community
By Abhijit Mohanty
The interaction between human being and nature has always been reciprocal. This is apparently evident in tribal communities where there always exist a symbiotic relationship between their livelihood pursuits and the surrounding natural resource base like the forest, land, and water, out of which land is one of the vital source of livelihood for them. Agriculture followed by collection of minor forest produces are major sources for their sustenance. The present paper was an attempt to understand the pattern of land ownership and indigenous agricultural methods of the Bondo community found only in the Khairput block of Malkangiri district of Odisha. The study clearly depicts that, among the Bondo, land is considered as the most valuable tangible assets and categorised under individual and community ownership. With the age old practices, the Bondo has developed their own indigenous technique to cultivate different crops in a range of land. Hence, it is imperative to meticulously study these indigenous methods of agriculture practice by the Bondo community one of the particular vulnerable tribe of India.