Usha Soolapani: The Woman Reviving India’s Forgotten Rice Varieties

Within the early Nineteen Eighties, India was nonetheless reeling from the Bhopal fuel tragedy when a younger agriculture officer in Palakkad, Kerala, discovered her compass in a slim ebook from Japan.

The One-Straw Revolution, Masanobu Fukuoka’s manifesto in opposition to chemical farming, was greater than a ebook for Usha Soolapani. It was a turning level.

“It grew to become a guiding mild,” she remembers. “It inspired me to start farming with out chemical compounds and to root agriculture in philosophy relatively than mere manufacturing.”

That philosophy would form her life’s work: conserving India’s folks rice varieties and constructing a motion that has helped revive paddy traditions throughout six states.

In the present day, in Thiruvananthapuram, Usha’s life and work are carefully intertwined along with her buddy and accomplice Jayakumar. Each are related to Thanal, a collective that feels much less like an organisation and extra like a sprawling household.

Inside its circle of mates and supporters is a shared dedication to environmental well being and justice.

From Palakkad’s wetlands to India’s rice heartlands

For practically 20 years, Usha labored quietly, witnessing the gradual unravelling of Kerala’s paddy ecosystem.

Farmers who as soon as earned greater than authorities workers had been now battling rising cultivation costs and stagnant grain costs.

Wetlands disappeared underneath actual property improvement. Paddy fields modified palms, and with them, centuries of ecological stability started to vanish.

Her marketing campaign in opposition to chemical pesticides, notably Endosulfan, grew to become a decisive turning level in her life.

What’s Endosulfan?

Endosulfan had been aerially sprayed on cashew plantations in Kerala’s Kasaragod district between 1978 and 2000. Communities dwelling close to the plantations reported beginning defects, disabilities and a variety of well being issues, ultimately making Kasaragod one among India’s most outstanding pesticide-contamination instances.

The marketing campaign in opposition to Endosulfan grew right into a long-running combat for recognition and compensation. The pesticide was ultimately banned in Kerala, whereas the Supreme Courtroom later intervened over the welfare of these affected. In January 2017, the court docket directed the Kerala authorities to disburse Rs 500 crore in compensation to greater than 5,000 victims.

The difficulty additionally gained international significance. In 2011, the Stockholm Conference listed technical Endosulfan and its associated isomers underneath Annex A as a persistent natural pollutant, with particular exemptions and provisions for phasing out its manufacturing and use.

For Usha, witnessing the results of chemical-intensive agriculture introduced house the connection between farming, public well being and the surroundings.

“What I witnessed in Palakkad was no remoted occasion,” says Usha, who has since develop into a number one voice in India’s meals sovereignty and agroecology actions.

“The identical story echoed throughout India’s rice heartlands.”

That realisation took Usha and her colleagues at Thanal, one among Kerala’s oldest environmental NGOs, throughout the nation between 2005 and 2018.

They travelled from Tamil Nadu’s lush deltas to Karnataka’s rust-red interiors, West Bengal’s floodplains and the tribal highlands of Chhattisgarh.

In every place, they sought out farmers who had been nonetheless safeguarding ancestral seeds, typically storing them in clay pots or tucking them away within the rafters of their kitchens.

What they discovered was greater than grain. It was reminiscence.

At seed festivals, the air carried the perfume of freshly cooked rice whereas elders shared tales of types that had practically disappeared.

Every gathering grew to become a chance to revive that heritage — one seed and one story at a time.

From a marketing campaign to a regional motion

The work was a part of a a lot larger effort.

The Save Our Rice Marketing campaign (SOR) was launched regionally by Pesticide Motion Community Asia Pacific (PANAP) in 2003 to counter threats to Asia’s rice heritage, meals sovereignty and conventional farming information. In India, Thanal grew to become one of many key organisations related to the marketing campaign, serving to construct a grassroots motion round indigenous rice varieties and ecological farming.

Over time, the marketing campaign grew past seed conservation. It introduced collectively farmers, environmental teams and neighborhood organisations round questions of meals safety, management over seeds and the way forward for farming.

Greater than 20 years on, the broader Save Our Rice community continues to work throughout Asia, with campaigns and partner organisations spanning nations together with India, Sri Lanka, the Philippines, Bangladesh, China, Indonesia, Korea, Laos, Malaysia, Pakistan, Thailand and Vietnam.

In India, one among its most seen contributions has been the creation of Rice Variety Blocks (RDBs) and neighborhood seed banks, the place conventional varieties may be grown, multiplied and shared relatively than merely saved away.

For Usha and her colleagues, the thought was by no means to protect rice as a museum piece.

It was to maintain it alive in farmers’ fields.

‘Paddy isn’t just a crop’

“Paddy isn’t just a crop,” Usha says.

“It’s an ecosystem that sustains individuals, communities and biodiversity. When such ecosystems are transformed for infrastructure, the stability is disrupted, and lives and livelihoods are put in danger.”

This perception grew to become the muse of the Save Our Rice Marketing campaign in India, which introduced farmers, seed savers, researchers and communities collectively to revive conventional rice varieties.

Farmers who as soon as arrived hesitantly at seed festivals now take part as useful resource individuals, sharing their information with others.

Seed savers have develop into consultants. Some have established neighborhood seed banks and farmer-producer firms. In WhatsApp teams, farmers alternate notes on pest resistance and cooking qualities. At annual melas, girls share recipes that showcase forgotten grains.

In panchayat-level seed banks, jars of crimson, golden and black rice line the cabinets.

Varieties as soon as held by a single farmer

A number of the marketing campaign’s most important discoveries got here from varieties that had been on the verge of disappearing.

In some instances, a range was recognized to only one or two farmers and was being grown in a tiny nook of a area.

The marketing campaign helped discover, doc and share these seeds.

In the present day, farmers throughout completely different areas are rising varieties that had been as soon as practically misplaced. Amongst them are:

The dimensions of the problem turns into clearer when taking a look at Kerala’s paddy fields.

The state’s rice-growing space has fallen dramatically from its historic peak. Kerala authorities knowledge reveals that wetland rice cultivation stood at about 1.8 lakh hectares in 2023–24, a pointy decline from the roughly 7.6–8 lakh hectares recorded within the many years after Independence.

Behind that decline are a number of components, together with rising cultivation prices in contrast with returns, labour shortages and stress from actual property improvement.

In 2008, Kerala enacted the Kerala Conservation of Paddy Land and Wetland Act to limit the conversion and reclamation of paddy fields and wetlands and defend their agricultural and ecological worth.

“It introduced again the worth of paddy ecosystems within the state,” Usha says.

However the stress to dilute the legislation and create exceptions for infrastructure tasks has continued.

Local weather change has added one other layer of uncertainty for farmers.

Floods can arrive with out warning, whereas droughts might comply with. Pest and illness patterns are additionally turning into much less predictable.

On the similar time, the programs meant to assist farmers — from native climate monitoring and advisory companies to dependable seed programs — stay fragile.

“There isn’t a actual effort to construct resilience by making farmers companions within the course of,” Usha says.

Her skilled life displays this conviction.

In Kerala, she works with organisations rooted in agroecology and consults on methods for constructing climate-resilient agriculture. She additionally contributes to nationwide advocacy as a Steering Committee member of ASHA — the Alliance for Sustainable and Holistic Agriculture, Kisan Swaraj.

For Usha, resilience can’t merely be a coverage imposed on farmers. Farmers themselves must be a part of constructing it.

Six states, one shared strategy

The marketing campaign now spans six states, every with its personal rice traditions, local weather and farming historical past.

Quite than imposing a single mannequin, SOR works with native accomplice organisations, permitting every to develop methods suited to its area.

What connects them is a shared strategy to local weather resilience, seed sovereignty and vitamin safety.

Usha says this was not at all times the marketing campaign’s focus.

“Local weather resilience wasn’t the guiding framework at first. The main focus lay on seed sovereignty, reviving rice tradition and honouring farmers’ knowledge. Over time, nevertheless, the motion has begun to evolve right into a local weather resilience paradigm.”

Allauddin Ahmed, state coordinator for the marketing campaign in West Bengal, remembers assembly Usha in 2004.

“Thanal invited me to Kumbalangi for the Worldwide Yr of Rice, the place I first met Usha throughout discussions on the alarming decline of indigenous rice and conventional agricultural heritage,” he remembers.

Over time, farmers within the Sundarbans have conserved and promoted round 192 folks rice varieties, he says.

Girls, seeds and sovereignty

Gender justice is one other necessary a part of Usha’s work.

She believes trendy agriculture has typically decreased girls to labourers relatively than recognising them as decision-makers.

Girls hardly ever personal land or seeds, whereas market costs are sometimes decided with out their participation.

“Apparently, girls play a serious position within the transition to natural and pure farming, which may result in meals sovereignty,” she says.

Annual occasions corresponding to Tamil Nadu’s Nel Thiruvizha, or rice competition, mirror this strategy.

These gatherings will not be solely about agriculture. They’re areas the place farmers alternate seeds, share their experiences and rejoice a meals heritage that industrial agriculture has typically pushed apart.

Bringing the younger into the motion

Getting youthful generations fascinated with paddy ecosystem restoration has required new concepts.

Seed festivals and meals festivals, fellowships and publicity visits, cultural programmes and social media have all helped take the message past conventional activist circles.

In South India, the marketing campaign additionally reached out to meals vloggers, natural retail entrepreneurs, movie stars, nutritionists and medical doctors to unfold consciousness about conventional rice varieties.

“That was a marketing campaign technique additionally,” Usha says with a quiet smile.

The thought was easy: if younger individuals may uncover these forgotten varieties by way of meals, tradition and fashionable media, they could additionally develop into within the farmers and ecosystems that protect them.

When a farmer’s house turns into a rice museum

The revival has additionally created uncommon areas for preserving this range.

In Karnataka’s Mandya district, farmer and seed conservator Syed Ghani Khan turned a part of his house in Kirigavalu into the Rice Variety Centre. It now homes greater than 1,300 conventional rice varieties, making it one among India’s largest non-public paddy collections. His work can also be carefully related to the broader farmer-led rice revival motion.

The thought of taking rice conservation past fields has appeared elsewhere too.

In West Bengal, a proposed rice museum on the Agricultural Coaching Centre in Fulia was designed to showcase a whole bunch of types, together with conventional and region-specific rice.

In Kerala, the Aluva State Seed Farm describes itself as a museum of conventional rice varieties, whereas preserving and propagating uncommon varieties that had been displaced by higher-yielding hybrids.

Assam’s Kaziranga Nationwide Orchid and Biodiversity Park has additionally featured a heritage rice assortment.

Collectively, these areas mirror a wider shift: conventional rice is being handled not merely as one thing from the previous, however as dwelling agricultural information that also has a spot in right this moment’s farms and kitchens.

Seeds, science and neighborhood knowledge

On the coronary heart of the Save Our Rice Marketing campaign are Rice Variety Blocks (RDBs) — community-managed plots the place conventional paddy varieties are grown, multiplied and conserved.

Alongside these, the marketing campaign has established seed banks managed by farmers’ teams on the panchayat stage.

The thought is easy: seeds ought to stay within the palms of the communities that depend upon them, relatively than being confined to institutional vaults or company catalogues.

Educated as a horticulturist, Usha introduced scientific information to a motion rooted in farmers’ conventional knowledge.

Her marketing campaign group organised regional skill-sharing workshops, participated in nationwide consultations on pesticides and agricultural coverage, and co-edited the marketing campaign’s anthology, Paddy By means of the Years.

Her strategy is to see farmers not as beneficiaries of professional information, however as consultants themselves.

“Farmers are breeders and innovators,” the marketing campaign’s framework states — a precept Usha advocated lengthy earlier than participatory agriculture grew to become a extensively mentioned strategy in improvement work.

A spectrum older than historical past

Conventional rice is way from simply white.

It is available in a outstanding vary of colors, with every selection carrying its personal dietary profile, historical past and connection to a specific panorama.

• Black rice, corresponding to Karuppu Kavuni, accommodates anthocyanins and a variety of nutritional vitamins and minerals.

• Purple varieties, together with Mappillai Samba, are recognized for his or her iron and zinc content material.

• Golden Thanga Samba is thought for its delicate aroma and barely candy style.

• And fragrant Jeeraga Samba releases a particular perfume because it cooks.

For generations, farmers developed and preserved these varieties to go well with the wants of their communities and environments.

The range shouldn’t be merely about color or style. Conventional varieties had been chosen over generations for traits suited to explicit landscapes — from saline circumstances and deep water to drought, pests and native culinary traditions.

In the present day, greater than 30,000 farmers throughout Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and West Bengal keep Rice Variety Blocks, conserving greater than 1,000 indigenous varieties.

Recognition and resonance

The marketing campaign’s work has additionally attracted consideration from meals coverage consultants and advocates.

Columnist and meals coverage analyst Devinder Sharma calls Usha’s work “really pioneering”.

“At a time when the dominant narrative favoured high-yielding hybrid rice — unsustainable and ill-suited to local weather resilience — Usha dared to face aside,” he says.

He believes the standard rice varieties she has labored to guard deserve wider recognition, noting that some are actually being preserved in world seed vaults.

Trying forward

For Usha, the way forward for the Save Our Rice Marketing campaign relies on making rice range a part of mainstream agricultural coverage.

She envisions a system the place governments worth rice range and tradition alongside productiveness.

A seed-to-plate system, she believes, may enhance entry to numerous conventional rice varieties for youngsters, pregnant girls and weak communities. Group-based manufacturing — from seed banks to native meals merchandise — may develop alongside multi-cropping and crop rotation.

However maybe most significantly, she desires younger individuals to see paddy ecosystems not merely as remnants of the previous, however as locations the place significant livelihoods can nonetheless be constructed.

That can require monetary and institutional assist, together with a stronger position for farmers in shaping agricultural coverage.

As a result of for Usha, saving a seed has by no means been solely about saving a crop.

It’s about defending the information, meals, livelihoods and ecosystems which have grown round it for generations.

And typically, as she found whereas studying a small ebook from Japan many years in the past, one concept — or one seed — may be sufficient to start a revolution.