India’s farmers revive 150 traditional grains
Bid to battle drought
THIRUTHURAIPOONDI, India, Aug 22, (RTRS): For Nel Jayaraman, the realisation that hybrid seeds, chemical fertilisers and pesticides were making farmers more vulnerable to extreme weather came slowly.
In fields near the town of Thiruthuraipoondi in the southern state of Tamil Nadu, Jayaraman saw yields falling and farmers’ debt rising as their reliance on modern seeds and pesticides grew, even as the rains became increasingly fickle.
Fifteen years ago, Jayaraman gave up both, returning to traditional varieties and organic farming methods that had become nearly extinct in the Cauvery river delta region where his family had lived for generations.
Since then, he has revived about 150 indigenous varieties of rice, and become an evangelist for traditional seeds and organic farming, which he sees as key to combating the impacts of climate change and protecting harvests and farmers’ incomes.
“Hybrid varieties need more water, fertilisers and pesticides. They are just not sustainable in this region,” he argued in his small office as a steady stream of farmers walked in and out to talk to him or buy seeds.
“We should go back to traditional varieties that are suited to this soil, that can withstand these conditions. It is the only way farmers can make a decent living.”
That is particularly crucial as Tamil Nadu faces its worst drought in more than a century, after the monsoon rains failed last year, he said.
As India’s population expanded quickly after its independence from colonial rule in 1947, the government backed a programme to increase food production to meet rising demand.
The Green Revolution, launched in the 1960s, increased harvests with improved technology, including high—yielding varieties of wheat and rice developed by scientists, and greater use of chemical fertilisers.
Drought
While productivity rose, there has been criticism that the benefits were overstated, that the cultivation methods damaged the land and drained groundwater, and that the gene pool for staple crops narrowed, leaving farmers fewer options when faced with disease and drought.
Several organisations in southern India have since launched efforts to revive traditional cultivation and rice varieties.
The Centre for Indian Knowledge Systems (CIKS), for example, has revived dozens of traditional rice varieties that are resistant to pests and disease, capable of dealing with floods and drought, and that have valuable medicinal properties.
“Particularly for coastal regions such as this, you need varieties that can handle the higher salinity of the soil and groundwater, and are resistant to drought,” said Subhashini Sridhar at CIKS in neighbouring Nagapattinam district.
“You need a large and diverse genetic pool to preserve these qualities,” she said, citing the example of the aftermath of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, which hit Nagapattinam hard.
Afterward, only some traditional varieties could be successfully grown because salinity in the soil and groundwater was higher than normal.
About 60 percent of India’s population depends on land to make a living.
But while agriculture made up more than two— thirds of a farm family’s income in the 1980s, its share is less than a third today as commodity prices fall but the costs of seed, fertiliser and pesticides rise.
Rising debt — in part from harvests slashed by drought and uneven rainfall — has triggered tens of thousands of farmer suicides, including in Tamil Nadu.
Jayaraman and Sridhar see traditional seeds as a solution.
Farmers do not need to buy seed every year as they have to with hybrids — instead they simply save part of their harvest to replant — and the older varieties often need less water and do not need chemical fertilisers and pesticides, Jayaraman said.