adopt a rice seed

Well I come from a farmer’s family. My father, Udayanath Sarangi was a very good and progressive farmer. We had only one and half acres of land. As children, whenever we were free, he would ask us to help him in the field. By helping him in the field I learnt how to farm, understood agriculture, what to do and what not to do.

In 1962 I became a teacher at Niali High School, where I taught science, mathematics, and geography. As a high school teacher you often have to teach multiple and sometimes all subjects. I retired in 1992. By then the green revolution was in full swing in Odisha. My father had died and we had given our land to sharecroppers. They were using fertilizers, pesticides, and high yielding seeds.

I could not rest after retirement. I may continue to live another 10-20 years, and simply idling my time sitting and eating did not seem right. I decided to start farming on the family land again. I began farming in 1995. I began with chemical farming because that was the norm at the time. I planted a high yielding variety known as CR 1009. A month and a half after transplantation, when the crop entered the growing stage it was severely attacked by pests and disease. I asked the block agriculture staff for advice, and they asked me to buy a pesticide called carbofuran. For my 3 acres of land, they suggested I buy 30 kg of carbofuran, mix it with sand and then spread it in the field. It was the only way to control the spread of the disease. I agreed but only bought 20 kgs of carbofuran as it was very expensive. I hired one man as labour to spread the chemical in the field. He mixed carbofuran with sand and took the mixture in a basket to broadcast across the field. He had only covered about 20-25% of the land when he fell down. I was perplexed. I knew that the chemical was poisonous and if because of it this man dies, I could go to jail. At the time I requested other people to help me bring him to the road. I gave him water till he came to his senses and then took him home where my wife gave him some warm milk to drink. Soon he was alright and ready to resume the task. I told him to stop spreading the chemical and instead dig a hole inside which we can bury the pesticide. I also asked him to cover the hole with earth and some thorny bushes to ensure that other birds, animals, dogs do not go near the poisonous substance and don’t die.

The next morning I went to the field as usual and saw to my surprise, many fish that lived in the rice field were dead. Crabs, oysters, frogs, and even small snakes were dead and floating in the water. Seeing these larger creatures dying I wondered what the pesticide did to microorganisms. The soil contains millions and millions of microorganisms, who work to convert nitrogen from the air and feed plants. Those organisms would definitely have died. This was a turning point for me and I decided to stop doing any more chemical farming.

By this time I had read One Straw Revolution, a book written by Fukuoka of Japan. That book came to my mind, and from the next kharif I started organic farming but using high yielding seeds. Indigenous seeds were not available at that time. My elder son, Rajendra Sarangi, he has passed away. He used to work with common people. He always thought about rural people, rural economy, rural development. He asked me why I wasn’t using indigenous seeds. I told him they were not available but he was not satisfied with my answer. He told me to try and find them and so began our search for indigenous seeds. The next kharif season, I sent Yubraj and 2-3 other boys to different places in Kurda, Cuttack, Puri, Koraput districts. In the first year they were able to collect only 5-6 varieties. We began farming with those.

In organic farming we do not use fertilizer or pesticide. Then how to farm? So then I used green manure called dhanicha and cow dung manure and I transplanted the 5-6 varieties of indigenous rice. In the first year the yield was not very promising. There were pests and disease. That year was over. After the first year, and till today our indigenous rice variety collection is continuing. Till today, we have been able to collect 500-600 varieties. We had collected 700 but due to excessive flooding and rain last year we lost about 100-150 varieties. While we have a lot of varieties we have limited land on which to grow all the rice varieties scientifically. Even though we are growing the rice in small patches in the field, I know that it is not that scientific and hence the purity of the seed is not that good.

When I turned to organic farming, we also prepared some organic manures. One is vermicompost, the others are liquid manures like panchagavya, handi khata, bijamrita, jiva mutra etc. We used these in the field and got tremendous results. Three years into switching from chemical to organic and indigenous agriculture we found that there were no pests in our fields and our production was satisfactory. It couldn’t match the yield of high yielding varieties but it was still satisfactory. While the high yielding variety produces more, its quality is not as good as that of indigenous varieties. Indigenous rice is tastier, more nutritious, and many varieties are also aromatic. There are varieties resistant to pests, others resistant to drought, to water-logging and floods.

So this is the way we are continuing our work. Ours is a non-funded organisation. Our mission began in 1996, and now in 2021 it is going to be 25 years of doing this work. Every year we distribute seeds to about 2,000 farmers. Not only from our area, from Koraput, Ganjam, Mayurbhanj and also outside the state – West Bengal,  Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra. They contact us and take seeds. There are many seed banks, particularly agriculture departments have seed banks. They have collected all kinds of seeds, including indigenous seeds but they cannot actually be used as seeds. These are only grains. In the National Rice Research Institute, they have kept some 30,000+ varieties but for what purpose? Why do you store it?  Why not give to the farmers? Some banks are storing seeds at conditions of -27 degrees Celsius which makes them viable for cultivation and ensures that the origin of the seed will continue for 100 years and its life will continue. But what is the meaning of that continuity if it is not used?

In the field here, each year we renew the production of the seeds. Each year we grow, harvest and save seeds, only to repeat it again the next year. Many people ask us why there are so many seeds? Which seed variety do you like best? But that is not a question for me. Children are all equal before their parents, and I treat them all as my children. I find a special quality in each and every seed that we have selected. But we do not use the term ‘organic farming’, instead we prefer to say ‘desi chasa’ or farming of the countryside. Our understanding is that 50-60 years ago, before the green revolution in India there was agricultural production. This production had no label or certificate saying that it was organic, but it was organic. Therefore what we are doing is returning to desi, indigenous methods of agriculture.

Yubraj is now the key person doing all the work. At first, many people questioned us, and asked how long we will continue this work? Some said that tomorrow if I die it will all collapse. Perhaps. We are all working, we don’t know what will happen after death. But for now, Yubraj is well trained and I am sure even in my absence, he can continue the work.