These Seed Bankers Are Saving India’s Native Crops

It was in 2001 that Sangita Sharma set up Annadana, a seed bank with 20 varieties of indigenous seeds on her five-acre farm in Bengaluru. Eighteen years later, her bank is richer by 800 varieties of desi seeds that are cheaper and more nutritious than hybrid varieties.

The history of Indian agriculture goes back 10,000 years. Over centuries, nature picked the most resilient seeds that thrived in Indian conditions without help of chemicals and fertilisers. Our native seeds. However, they lost out to high-yielding hybrid seeds introduced in the 1960s as part of the green revolution. Dr Debal Deb, a plant scientist and rice conservationist in Odisha, says that India was home to 1,10,000 varieties of rice till 1970. Of these only 6,000 survive today.

Today, individuals like Sharma are reviving the food diversity of India by preserving desi seeds from all over India. “I love food. And I wanted to know where it comes from,” says the former communications professional who now farms and preserves seeds for a living.

At Dr Prabhakar Rao’s farm near Bengaluru, visitors can see a number of desi vegetables in bloom. Red bhindi, red corn, violet peppers and tomatoes in at least four different colours including blue and yellow. Varieties that we never get to see in the market.

“India has lost 99% of biodiversity in vegetables,” says Dr Rao, an agricultural scientist who started collecting native seeds seven years ago, and today has 540 in his bank called Hariyalee.

To reintroduce these varieties to people, Rao holds farming workshops that attract urban farmers, terrace gardeners, students and scientists. “Most people don’t know a crucial fact about native seeds: they cannot be grown using chemicals. If I add urea to a native wheat variety, it will grow tall but easily snap in the wind. In contrast, GMO and hybrid seeds cannot grow without the use of fertilizers and pesticides. Also, they are designed to not reproduce. This ensures that the farmer has to go back to the seed corporation every sowing season to buy seeds,” says Rao, who started his career during the green revolution but had a change of heart when he realised the long-term unsustainability of chemical agriculture.

A software engineer by profession, Babita Bhatt left a corporate career in Gurugram three years ago, and moved to Dehradun along with her husband Alok to preserve heirloom seeds. She also set up an e-store, Himalaya2home, to sell these seeds and other products like native dals, oils and flours. “There’s so much pesticide in our food. Cancer cases are increasing. What is happening to our food chain is obviously affecting our health,” says Bhatt, who sources seeds from all over Uttarakhand.

She introduced a desi variety of black rice, indigenous to Imphal valley, to some local farmers. “I figured that the climate conditions in Doon and Imphal are similar and decided to experiment. The rice has taken very well to Dehradun,” she adds. However, the local Type 3 Dehradun basmati, famous for its fragrance and long grains, is no longer the same. “Paddy here was grown with water fed from mountain streams. Now, the streams have little water left in them or it’s contaminated. So, while the desi variety is around, it has lost its aroma,” says Bhatt.

On her e-store, she sells 15 varieties of rajma sourced from valleys across the state, like Henval, Bhagirathi, Johar, Alaknanda and Doon.

One of her suppliers is Vijay Jardhari from Jardhar village in Henval valley, Tehri-Garhwal. Jardhari, 67, runs Beej Bachao Andolan, a social initiative to preserve seeds native to Uttarakhand. A key figure in the Chipko movement, Jardhari started collecting native seeds in 1985-86, and today has around 150 varieties of rice and 200 varieties of rajma, in addition to desi vegetables. Of the rice varieties, some like tapachini and jhamcha, yield 70 quintals/hectare. In comparison, Pusa RH 10, a hybrid basmati, yields 65 quintals/hectare. “Native varieties act like vaccines,” says Jardhari.

“You have them in the season and you are recharged for the rest of the year. If you eat kulath dal (horse gram) two to three times in winter, it will prevent stone formation. If you have stones, then drinking its water will help dissolve them,” says Jardhari, who is invited to many sustainable farming conventions both in India and abroad.

Though Jardhari’s claims stem from traditional knowledge of farmers and don’t necessarily have scientific backing, there are many converts. Cancer survivor Amit Vaidya is one of those. “Hybrid tomatoes can’t be stewed the same way as desi tomatoes. Their skin comes off differently. Native beetroot varieties are softer, sweeter and darker in colour indicating a higher concentration of antioxidants. I know where my food comes from and it makes all the difference,” says Vaidya, who lives on Vypin island, near Kochi.

Sharma of Annadana says it’s time the government steps in to preserve native seeds. “State horticulture farms can start using them,” says Sharma, who’s looking for collaborations to create more community seed banks.

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Source: ToI

Image Courtesy: Nepali Sansar

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