Once its most consumed grains in India, as folk rice varieties seemed to be on the verge of being edged out by the senseless quest for high-yield hybrids – thanks to lost biodiversity – farmers across states have launched a sustained campaign to preserve the native varieties. Hiraman points out that the new-age varieties are doing incalculable harm by destroying traditional agricultural systems and rupturing food cultures.
The cereal that provides daily sustenance to over 60 per cent of the population in India was once home to more than 100,000 rice varieties. Sadly, this biodiversity is irretrievably lost, forced out by the quest for high-yield hybrids and varieties.
However, in recent years farmers in several states of the country are at the forefront of a movement to safeguard what remains of this genetic wealth as they grow the native varieties.
Grown under varying ecosystems on a range of soils under varying climatic and hydrological conditions ranging from waterlogged and poorly drained to well-drained situations, rice is one of the chief grains of India and is grown in 43.86 million hectares.
One can understand the richness of rice heritage from the fact that in Bangladesh, around 7000 rice varieties were replaced by modern high-yielding varieties (HYVs), out of which only 400 now survive, and that too on marginal farms.
Almost 5000 rice varieties from India’s Northeastern states were shipped to the International Rice Research Institute in the Philippines in 1965. Out of this, none of the varieties from Assam exist there anymore. In West Bengal too, over 5500 varieties were recorded to have existed until the 1970s, out of which 3500 varieties were shipped to IRRI for preservation. Similar is the case with China, Japan and other South East Asian Countries, where local varieties have drastically declined, because of the shift to monoculture and modern varieties since the 1970s.
In the 1970s agricultural institutions and development agencies in India promoted the new ‘miracle’ varieties and irrigation technologies ushering in the Green Revolution. Following this, rice varieties suited to upland and deep-water paddy farms started disappearing. Another negative fall-out of such an irrigated method was the rapid depletion of groundwater.
When thousands of such rice ‘landraces’ disappear, we lose folk knowledge about the properties of specific varieties; it destroys traditional agricultural systems and even upsets food cultures. Moreover, the farmer becomes viciously tied to dependence on the external supply of seeds and inputs.
HYVs Vs Folk rice varieties
Native or heirloom varieties have adapted over centuries to local ecologies and have proved hardier in the face of problems such as pests and drought. Compared to this the modern varieties bred in labs were designed for the neat routines of intensive agriculture. They were tailored for mechanised farming, intended to absorb large doses of chemical fertilisers and predictable supplies of water.
Most efforts to conserve folk rice varieties in India have been individual or institutional initiatives. That’s what sets the farmer-run Amarkanan Rural Socio-environmental Welfare Society (ARSWS) apart. It is led by Dr Anjan Kumar Sinha, a botanist and assistant professor at Purulia’s Raghunathpur College. The Society has so far conserved and preserved over 200 extant varieties and shared the seeds with fellow farmers so that they can be multiplied. Of these, 106 varieties have been registered with the Protection of Plant Varieties and Farmers’ Rights Authority—an effective system for the protection of plant varieties and the rights of farmers and plant breeders.
Similarly, the Forum for Indigenous Agricultural Movement (FIAM), a grassroots organisation of farmers active in Uttar and Dakshin Dinajpur districts of West Bengal cultivate heirloom (folk rice) varieties with environmentally friendly agricultural practices to usher food security in their villages. What started in 2011 with five to six members who were against chemical cultivation for high-yield crops has grown to about 120 farmers from nearly 25 villages. In the process, the NGO has revived over 100 indigenous paddy varieties.
In 2020, Sagar Krishnanagar Swami Vivekananda Youth Cultural Society of South 24 Parganas (West Bengal) was granted the PPR (Protection of Plant Rights) for conserving Harinakhuri. Incidentally, Harinakhuri like other landraces was almost extant and grown in a few villages of coastal saline tracts of West Bengal, where it is under localised cultivation.
The efforts put in by S.R. Srinivasamurthy, a farmer from the Narsipur Taluk of Karnataka to conserve and propagate folk variety is nothing but exemplary. Embarking on a tour of the rice-growing states in a bid to collect different species of rice to build a seed bank, he procured 350 varieties of rice, (many of these with medicinal properties) and planted them in his 1.5-acre plot. His seeds are sought after by other farmers too.
In Kerala, it was found that traditional rice varieties were vanishing, with as many as 55 varieties of paddy seeds becoming extinct in the Wayanad district of Kerala in the Western Ghats. Once nearly 160 varieties of paddy were grown here. This came to light through a study conducted by the Kerala State Biodiversity Board, as part of its preparation of the People’s Biodiversity Register (PBR) in the year 2002. It was also discovered that there were about 25-30 varieties cultivated in a single panchayat, which means it could plunge into extinction if not actively conserved.
According to the farmers, folk varieties can withstand cyclones better than modern ones, while others can cope better in conditions of drought or low rainfall. Farmers had other reasons to prefer desi varieties—their taller paddy stalks yielded valuable byproducts: fodder for cattle, mulch for the soil, and hay for thatching the roofs of their homes, unlike the short-statured modern varieties.
Farmers’ desire to conserve them includes reasons like aroma, their relationship with the environment, adaptability, nutritional value, cooking quality, revival of traditional agricultural systems and promoting food culture.
We live in a reality where climate change is here to stay – and it means long spells of drought, increased frequency of storms and floods, late rains and soil salination, all of which will severely affect food production. So, it is these local, hardy rice varieties that will finally come to our rescue. Until now, the hurdles in the production of traditional varieties were lower yield and lack of an exclusive market.
Village which grows 20 folk rice varieties
Murukate village in Kolhapur, Maharashtra grows 10 traditional varieties of rice with organic fertilisers, and the mountain streams that irrigate the fields lending each of them a unique fragrance. Most paddy varieties grown here fall under the category of suvashit (Marathi for aromatic) rice, which takes 120-135 days to mature, unlike the high-yielding and hybrid ones that are harvested much earlier.
The varieties range from the slender-grained Ghansal, round Jondhla Jirga, Black rice and Ambemohar – the one with the fragrance of mango blossom – to the sticky Indrayani and Hawla, which is preferred for infants and also to make puffed rice.
Community effort in conservation is rare and that’s what sets apart the paddy growers of 20 villages of Sangli’s Shirala taluka in Maharashtra who took to growing folk varieties during the second wave of COVID-19 when paddy seeds and chemical fertilisers were scarce. They sourced 23 indigenous seeds and formed six self-help groups with 15 members each growing five to six varieties in plots ranging from 20 gunthas to three acres each.
Folk varieties possess medicinal and nutritional properties. For instance, antioxidant-rich Gobindobhog helps boost metabolism, keeps digestion smooth and supports good health. Rich in anthocyanin, Kala Namak rice contains 11% protein, which is almost double that of common rice varieties and has a low Glycemic Index (49% to 52%). Considered the first food for babies, Ghansal nourishes body tissues and is easy to digest. Shastika Shali has proved its efficacy against muscular and neurological disorders.
Folk varieties possess several stress-tolerant properties, which act as positive factors in the retention of rice landraces in the face of increasing propaganda for cultivating HYVs. Traditional rice varieties therefore represent important genetic reservoirs with valuable traits.