He is on a mission to save tradition and local crops
RICE MAN Collector of folk songs and seeds has sown 110 varieties of rice to preserve them
He is a collector of folk songs and seeds. And it was while collecting Bagheli folklore, this 72-year-old farmercum-Bagheli poet realised that only preserving folk songs won’t do if the local crop varieties, which repeatedly feature in the folk literature, are not saved and protected side by side.
Meet Babulal Dahiya from Madhya Pradesh’s Satna district, who has till date collected over 110 traditional varieties of rice. And he has been cultivating these varieties to preserve and protect them.
Dahiya says these rice varieties have developed uniquely over thousands of years surviving the stiff competition that could have made them extinct.
“There are rice varieties that need less water. They are disease and also comparatively drought resistant. But for larger yield and more profit, we started sowing hybrid and dwarf rice varieties, which need more pesticides and fertilizers. Local rice varieties have longer stalks that help them hold moisture and need less water,” says Dahiya, who has been encouraging farmers and schoolchildren in over two dozen surrounding villages to grow traditional crop and vege- table varieties.
Emphasising that traditional crop varieties are vanishing owing to mono-cropping and focus on maximum yield crop varieties, Dahiya says it is high time to save whatever has been left.
“From 2005 onwards, I dedicated myself to collect local varieties of rice. Till date, I have collected 110 varieties. The seeds I collect are kept in a seed bank which has been developed with the help of the MP state biodiversity board,” he says.
Dahiya, who retired as postmaster in 2007, has been passionate about documenting Bagheli folk literature-songs, proverbs, folktales, legends, myths and so on. He has authored five books on Bagheli oral folk literature for MP Adiwasi Lok Kala Academy and published two Bagheli poetic collections.
When asked about his varied interests, he says, “In the songs, and folk tales, I found many mentions about traditional crop varieties. There is one ‘Kargi’ rice variety, which has small protective spikes. There is a saying in our Bagheli ‘Dhaan bove Kargi, suvar khaye na samdhi’. (If you sow Kargi rice variety, it is neither eaten by wild boars nor by the family of son-in-law). Suddenly it dawned on me that if these local crop varieties are not preserved, they will vanish,” he says.
There are rice varieties like Bajranga that are sown by farmers to feel satiated for a long time as it takes time to digest this variety, while there are other kinds like Kamalshree that are sown for guests, he says.
“Nevari variety provides good returns,” he adds.
R Sreenivasa Murthy, member secretary, MP State Biodiversity Board, says Dahiya’s work has been an inspiration to so many.
“For the first time, we started a state-wide Beej yatra to collect seeds of indigenous varieties of crops, vegetables, medicinal plants from May 3 to June 27. Dahiya and five others are leading this initiative. So far, they have collected over 1,600 varieties from 24 districts,” Murthy said.
According to agriculture scientists, the local varieties of crops are vanishing with every passing day.
In 1980s, there were 23,800 varieties of rice in MP and Chhattisgarh, but many of them are lost now, a board official says. In Seoni district alone, of 570 rice varieties that existed in 1980s, only 110 are there. This means over 80 % have vanished.