Publications & scholarship

A through-line

Traditional and indigenous agroforestry practices in the Eastern Himalaya

Agroforestry has been the spine of Dr. Sharma’s research since his doctorate, which examined productivity and nutrient cycling across an age series of Alnus nepalensis–large cardamom systems in the Sikkim Himalaya — published as two companion papers in Annals of Botany, on biomass and productivity and on nutrient dynamics.

The enquiry continued through the biogeochemistry of these systems: soil carbon, nitrogen and phosphorus dynamics across a forty-year chronosequence in Pedobiologia, and the energetics and efficiency of nitrogen fixation along altitudinal gradients in Ecological Research. Together they show how a smallholder system built on alder and large cardamom sustains fertility, nutrient cycling and yield with little external input.

Across three decades the work has moved from components to whole systems — from the plot to the landscape — spanning tropical and subtropical foothills through temperate and alpine to the trans-Himalaya, and taking in forest–agriculture interfaces, soil fertility, agrobiodiversity, indigenous knowledge, watershed process, livelihoods and climate adaptation. These are not remnants of traditional agriculture but working laboratories of indigenous agroecosystem management.

That reading aligns with where agroforestry science is going. Agroforestry is increasingly framed — by the FAO among others — as a nature-based solution addressing climate adaptation and mitigation, biodiversity loss, soil degradation and food security at once. Himalayan systems already embody much of what is now promoted as climate-smart and regenerative: carbon is not an added intervention but part of the farm’s productive structure, held in standing biomass, soil organic carbon, perennial cover and litter, with low dependence on synthetic inputs.

The work is applied as well as ecological. After more than 60% of Sikkim’s cardamom plantations became barely productive, the same body of knowledge underpinned the phased fifteen-year replantation strategy, with interim cropping, that Sikkim’s Department of Science and Technology launched in 2023 as Mero Alainchi, Mero Dhan. See the programmes →

For researchers

These landscapes offer functioning systems rather than experimental plots. Nutrient cycling, carbon storage, agrobiodiversity, food sovereignty and security, livelihood diversification, local and cash economies, and climate resilience can be studied within a single integrated landscape — with three decades of baseline data, established community institutions and a resident scientist already in place.

Enquiries are welcome from doctoral and postdoctoral researchers, visiting fellows and collaborating institutions. Get in touch →