Kondh Adivasis farmers known for their sophisticated practices of agro-forestry: Koraput region, “one of the world’s great biodiversity hotspots” – Odisha

In Kaliponga village, farmer Ramdas sows Bt and HT cotton a few days after dousing the land with glyphosate, a broad spectrum herbicide. Photo: Chitrangada Choudhury >>

CHITRANGADA CHOUDHURY – ANIKET AGA, counterpunch.org, 8 October 2019 | Read the full story here >>

Pirikaka is a Kondh Adivasi farmer in her 40s.  Every year, for over two decades, she would prepare a hill slope for dongar chaas – literally, ‘mountain farming’ (shifting cultivation). Following traditions honed by the region’s farmers over centuries, Pirikaka would sow mixed plots of heirloom seeds which she had saved from family harvests the previous year. These would yield a basket of food crops: millets like mandia and kangu, pulses like pigeon pea and black gram, as well as traditional varieties of long beans, niger seeds and sesame.

This July, for the first time, Pirikaka switched to Bt cotton. That was the time we met her, sowing the dark pink, chemical-doused seeds on a hill slope at her village in Bishamakatak block. The penetration of cotton into the shifting cultivation practices of the Adivasis was striking, making us ask her about this switch. “Other crops like turmeric also give money,” admits Pirikaka. “But nobody is doing that. Everyone is leaving mandia [millet]… and going after cotton.” […]

Rayagada, with close to 1 million people, is a part of the Koraput region, one of the world’s great biodiversity hotspots, and a historical area of rice diversification. A 1959 survey of the Central Rice Research Institute showed the region still had over 1,700 rice varieties at the time. It’s down to around 200 now. Some researchers believe it to be a birthplace of rice cultivation.

The Kondh Adivasis here, largely subsistence farmers, are known for their sophisticated practices of agro-forestry. Even today, many Kondh families across the region’s emerald-green terraced fields and mountainside farms, cultivate a dizzying array of paddy and millet varieties, pulses and vegetables. Surveys by Living Farms, a non-profit in Rayagada, have recently documented 36 millet varieties and 250 forest foods.

Most Adivasi farmers here work on individual or common property farms ranging from 1 to 5 acres in size.

Their seeds are largely nurtured and shared within the community, using almost no synthetic fertilisers or other agri-chemicals (also called agro-chemicals).

Yet, cotton has become the second-most cultivated crop in Rayagada after paddy, overtaking millets – the premier traditional food crops of the region. It covers a fifth of the 428,947 acres under cultivation in this district. Cotton’s swift expansion is reshaping this land and people steeped in agro-ecological knowledge. […]

The traditional knowledge of farm-related as well as non-farm occupations are rapidly disappearing,” he said. In village after village, there is no potter, no carpenter, no weaver. All household goods are bought from the market, and most of these – from the pitcher to the mat – are made of plastics, imported from faraway towns. Bamboos have disappeared from most villages, and with them bamboo crafts. They are now substituted by wood from the forest and expensive concrete. Even for erecting a pole or making a fence, villagers have to cut trees from the forest. The more people depend on the market due to the lure of profit, the more the environment degrades.” […]

Source: Sowing the Seeds of the Climate Crisis in Odisha
URL: https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/10/08/sowing-the-seeds-of-the-climate-crisis-in-odisha/
Date visited: 9 October 2019

[Bold typeface added above for emphasis]

“If we take action, the right action – as the report [on Biological Diversity] proposes – we can transition to a sustainable planet.” […] Many good things are happening around the world and these should be celebrated and encouraged […] We have to act now. It is not too late. Otherwise, our children and grandchildren will curse us because we will leave behind a polluted, degraded and unhealthy planet.” – Elizabeth Maruma Mrema, executive secretary, UN Convention on Biological Diversity – “Extinction: Urgent change needed to save species, says UN”, BBC News, 15 September 2020 >>

“Extinction: Urgent change needed to save species, says UN”
Watch the video on BBC News | More about Biodiversity in India >>

Research the above issues with the help of Shodhganga: A reservoir of theses from universities all over India, made available under Open Access >>

Learn more

Atree.org | Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology & the Environment (posts)

Biodiversity | Hyderabad biodiversity pledge | Nilgiri Biosphere

Climate change | United Nations on climate change

eBook | Background guide for education

eJournals, eBooks & reports

eLearning: Center for World Indigenous Studies

Ethnobotany & ethnomedicine

Gandhian social movement

Nehru

Health and nutrition | Recommendations by the Expert Committee

Rural poverty

Sacred grove | Illegal mining

Shola Trust

Success story

M S Swaminathan

Tagore and rural culture

Western Ghats – tribal heritage & ecology

Tips for using interactive maps

Toggle to normal view (from reader view) should the interactive map not be displayed by your tablet, smartphone or pc browser

For details and hyperlinks click on the rectangular button (left on the map’s header)

Scroll and click on one of the markers for information of special interest

Explore India’s tribal cultural heritage with the help of another interactive map >>