Non-Timber Forest Products (NTFPs) and Livelihood Security: An Economic Study of High Hill Temperate Zone Households of Himachal Pradesh

Non Timber Forest Products (NTFP) can fulfill important community needs and improve rural livelihood in Parvati Forest Division of Kullu circle. There is a growing understanding about NTFPs but its importance has not been fully introduced within government frameworks and rural development policies and programs. The average family size of examined area comprised of 6 persons, out of whom 53 percent were males and rest were females. Literacy situation revealed that nearly 83.48 percent family members were literate at overall level with a literacy index of 1.84, indicating poor quality of education in the study area. About 48.48 percent of the total land holding was cultivated area with cropping intensity 172 percent. NTFPs’ contributed about 24.99 percent to the total farm income. Moreover, inclusion of NTFPs’ income in the farm income resulted in reducing the income inequalities as Gini coefficient with NTFPs income from 0.20 to 0.18. NTFPs collection generated on an average 72 days of employment to sampled households. Literacy index and land holding were found affecting NTFPs dependency negatively i.e., with the increase in the land holding size and literacy index, NTFPs dependency is going to decrease whereas, age of the household head was found positively related to the NTFPs dependency, since they had more knowledge about NTFPs uses and their method of extraction