Guwahati: For years, 45-year-old Masua Bori has reared cattle and other livestock at Number 1 Bokuli Chapori in Golaghat district of eastern Assam. His ancestors, too, have been grazing their livestock here for generations.But in August, oil-palm saplings were brought to the grazing ground without consulting residents of the six nearby villages who depend on it, Bori told The Wire.“We don’t cultivate on that land, but because we are people living near the riverbank, it’s a grazing ground for our animals,” said Bori, who belongs to the Mising community. Residents of six villages use the land to graze their cows, buffaloes, pigs, goats and chickens, he said.People associated with a cooperative agricultural society called Gulungtemera Bohumukhi Krishi Xomabai Rin Xamiti under Gulungtemera panchayat approached residents seeking permission to cultivate seasonal crops such as mustard, sesame and mati mah (black gram) at Bokuli Chapori. Residents agreed because they understood that the cultivation would be seasonal. They did not, however, agree to oil-palm cultivation. “We were initially fine with rabi crops and we allowed them to plant. But when we saw that they had also started planting oil palm, that’s when we decided to stop them,” Bori said.An official from the Golaghat Agriculture Department, who did not wish to be identified, said around 500 bighas of land were available at the chapori (riverbank) and the cooperative agricultural society had been formed independently to grow seasonal rabi crops there. The farmers involved, who also belonged to the Mising community, were from another village about 10 km from Bokuli Chapori, the official said. Although the initiative was not an Agriculture Department project, the department supported the move, the official added. Another resident of Bokuli Chapori, Ajoy Missong, said people who used the land for grazing had not been consulted before oil palm was planted there. Residents eventually intervened and stopped the planting. Around 60 oil-palm seedlings had been planted on August 25 and were subsequently removed, Missong said. About 150 seedlings are now being kept in one place at Bokuli Chapori, he added.Binoy Bori, the cooperative society chairman, said that the government gave them oil palm, so they planted them. However, the villagers say that they were aware of black gram, mustard and sesame, but not aware of oil palm.Bori said residents became concerned after hearing about the potential effects of oil-palm cultivation through previous news reports and videos by forest conservationist Jadav Payeng, also known as the “forest man of India”. Payeng has warned about the potential ecological consequences of large-scale monoculture plantations and advocated planting native trees that support local biodiversity.Oil-palm seedlings stocked at Bokuli Chapori in Assam’s Golaghat district. Photo: Piyush Protim Saikia.Binoy Bori, chairman of the Gulungtemera Bohumukhi Krishi Xomabai Rin Xamiti, said the cooperative society was formed last year in 2025. Its members have already invested in sowing seeds and want to continue cultivating black gram, mustard and sesame. He said that the agriculture department had supplied the society with oil-palm saplings and members had begun planting them accordingly.Bori said that oil palm had not previously been cultivated in the riverine areas and that no one had presented the society with scientific evidence showing that it could be environmentally harmful.He maintained that the society would not plant oil palm if the community opposed it. However, “If the government grants us permission to do oil palm, then we will have to,” he said.The Wire spoke to Payeng’s daughter, Munmuni Payeng, also a conservationist, who is of the view that oil-palm cultivation is not suitable for Assam, particularly in riverine areas where the Brahmaputra regularly changes course and floods and sediment reshape the landscape. Payeng argued that oil palm required large amounts of water and could affect the land’s suitability for other crops. Assam should instead prioritise crops traditionally grown in the region, she said.Both Bori and Missong, the issue is also inseparable from the community’s long-standing relationship with the riverine landscape. Bori estimates that families in the surrounding villages collectively rear more than 20,000 cows and buffaloes, which depend on the grazing ground.Who has the right to the land?Bori said residents had not been granted miyadi patta, or periodic land settlement rights, over the grazing ground. “We are requesting the government that this land should remain as it is. It should remain for our animals,” Bori said.Soneshwar Narah, a land-rights activist and adviser to the Jeepal Krishak-Sramik Sangha from Bokakhat district near Kaziranga National Park, said the dispute over Bokuli Chapori was part of a larger problem concerning indigenous communities’ rights to land they had traditionally used.Although the land is officially classified as government grazing land, Narah said, that designation does not account for the Mising community’s generations-long relationship with the riverine landscape.He said many indigenous families held formal land pattas for only a fraction of the land they had traditionally depended on, while other areas remained outside their legal records. Narah blamed the failure to conduct regular land surveys and settle ancestral claims, arguing that this had gradually weakened communities’ access to their traditional lands.He also criticised the state’s land-settlement policies under Mission Basundhara, arguing that they had failed to adequately protect indigenous people’s land rights.According to him, Mission Basundhara has reduced generations of customary land use to a few bighas of legal title. Mising families, he explains, have traditionally lived on and cultivated chaporis, farms and homesteads spread across 60 to 70 bighas, but under the scheme many are being granted miyadi patta for only one or two bighas.For instance, he says, “out of 60 or 70 bighas, people might only get one or two bighas.” “But considering I have been farming on those 60 or 70 bighas, the government has now put around 69 bighas in the land bank, and I have been given miyadi patta for only one or two bighas.”Bokuli Chapori in Assam’s Golaghat district, where residents depend on the land to graze their livestock. Photo: Piyush Protim Saikia.According to Narah, land that families have used for cultivation, settlement and grazing is being entered into the land bank and shown as vacant government land. He alleges that such land is then made available to corporations. He acknowledges that the Mission’s successive phases – Basundhara 1.0, 2.0, 3.0 and 4.0 – have issued pattas to some applicants. But, in his view, the process has excluded lakhs of people while giving those who qualify only small plots. Narah also wants traditionally used grazing land to be measured and recognised. “Land where Mising people have reared and grazed their animals and livestock should also get miyadi patta,” he says. He argues that cultivation on such land could continue through community understanding but he says no legal process currently distinguishes grazing land from cultivated land.Narah questioned why cultivation had been permitted at Bokuli Chapori if the land was officially designated as government grazing land. The legal status of the land is central to the dispute. Under Rules 92 and 95 of the rules framed under the Assam Land and Revenue Regulation, 1886, land formally declared and demarcated as a village grazing ground is protected for grazing and cannot be occupied for other purposes. Rule 95-A lays down a process for cancelling a grazing-ground allotment, requiring the Deputy Commissioner to issue notice, hear objections and refer the matter to the government for a final decision.The Assam Land Policy, 2019, similarly calls for the preservation of existing Village Grazing Reserves and Professional Grazing Reserves and restricts their reduction through de-reservation and allotment, except for public purposes in special circumstances.These provisions raise questions about the authority under which cultivation was permitted at Bokuli Chapori. “It is surprising and unfortunate that oil-palm saplings were planted in the name of rabi crops,” Narah said at a press meet at the Dispur Press Club in Guwahati on October 7. The Jeepal Krishak-Sramik Sangha also submitted a memorandum to Assam Chief Secretary Ravi Kota on the same day, seeking an investigation into the matter at Bokuli Chapori.The Wire has reached out to Kota and will update the piece if he responds.Assam’s oil-palm pushAssam’s commercial oil-palm cultivation began in Goalpara district in 2015, with support from the state government and the Rabha Hasong Autonomous Council. A 2022 report by Mongabay-India noted the initiative to the council’s decision to promote the crop several years earlier. The report examined concerns about the potential effects of expanding plantations on forests and human-elephant conflict. It also documented farmers’ difficulties arising from delays in establishing processing infrastructure.The Union government’s National Mission on Edible Oils-Oil Palm, approved in 2021, gave the expansion a larger national framework. The mission aims to increase domestic palm-oil production and reduce India’s dependence on imports. It offers financial assistance for planting material, maintenance, intercropping and infrastructure, including irrigation and water-harvesting facilities. The Union government has cited an assessment identifying around 3.75 lakh hectares of potential area for oil-palm cultivation in Assam.The Assam government is now stepping up efforts to expand oil-palm cultivation, including on char-chapori land. In September, Assam’s agriculture minister Pijush Hazarika said the state had achieved 99.5% of its oil-palm planting target for August. He said the initial response to the scheme had been slow, but changes to the categories of land eligible for assistance had helped broaden its reach.The government has expanded the scheme beyond farmers holding miyadi patta to include farmers with other categories of cultivated land in their possession, as well as char-chapori and tea garden areas, Hazarika said. The state was also building support systems for the crop, including the supply of quality saplings, farmer training, irrigation, intercropping, collection and processing. The Indian Council of Agricultural Research was providing technical support, he added.Hazarika argued that oil palm could provide farmers with an additional source of income while helping India reduce its dependence on imported edible oil. If the systems needed to support cultivation and processing were put in place, the crop could become another viable option for Assam’s farmers, he said.Livelihoods and the cropConcerns about oil-palm cultivation extend beyond Bokuli Chapori. Putul Narah, a farmer from Morongial village in Golaghat district, said he had been approached about growing the crop in the past but was reluctant to take it up.The site at Bokuli Chapori in Assam’s Golaghat district where oil-palm seedlings were planted and later removed. Photo: By arrangement.Narah said farmers were offered free seedlings and chemicals. Representatives had assured farmers that the company would collect the harvest, addressing their concerns about where they could sell it. But he worried that farmers like him might have little control over the prices they received. “It’s like you are making me the labourer and taking away the produce as well,” he said.Narah identified Patanjali as the company behind the initiative. A July 2022 report by NewsClick, said the Assam government had signed an agreement with Patanjali Foods Ltd, formerly Ruchi Soya Industries Ltd, to promote oil-palm cultivation and establish processing facilities. The agreement covered districts including Golaghat.Umesh Srinivasan, associate professor at the Centre for Ecological Sciences at the Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru, said oil palm has been associated with extensive deforestation in countries such as Indonesia and Malaysia. However, he said the plant itself was not necessarily the problem if cultivation was planned carefully.“If it’s planted in the right place, with minimum harm to biodiversity, without replacing natural forests and semi-natural habitats, and without trampling indigenous rights, then it’s a win-win situation,” he said, adding that this is particularly important in Northeast India, where forested hills and river valleys form part of the watersheds that feed the Brahmaputra.Srinivasan cautioned that oil-palm cultivation typically requires large tracts of land and could concentrate effective control over land in fewer hands, even where communities had previously used it collectively for different purposes such as for food, medicinal plants, building materials and grazing alongside other livelihood resources. Converting it to a commercial monoculture could narrow those uses and leave residents with fewer options beyond working as labourers on plantations, he said. He argued that India could instead explore expanding oil-palm cultivation on existing agricultural land, particularly where farmers have individual ownership and can make informed decisions about changing crops. Government subsidies and incentives could support such a transition without placing additional pressure on forests and other natural habitats, he said.Srinivasan also stressed the close relationship between biodiversity and climate resilience. Forests in the Northeast help buffer the region against extreme climatic events, he said, a role that could become increasingly important as such events grow more frequent and severe. Replacing forests with oil-palm plantations could undermine this protective function, he argued.At Bokuli Chapori, for residents like Bori and Missong, the value of the chapori, they said, lies not in what can be grown there for a commercial market, but in the livestock it sustains and the role it plays in the life of the community. Sanksrita Bharadwaj is an independent journalist.