RID POVERTY & HUNGER IN 50 INDIAN TRIBAL VILLAGES

Report on the Earth Trust Program for Safe food through Sustainable Agriculture

July 2021

Women Seed Savers

We soldiered on despite the repercussions of the second wave of the pandemic which included the erratic transport, lock down restrictions, containment zones and the ensuing uncertainty of what to plant, whether to plant and how much to plant.

We used this precious time to work towards seed sovereignty and multiplying heirloom seeds. This is an effort to revive the age old practice prevalent   among the indigenous Badaga community. Thanks to the periodic rituals that require seeds as an element, Badaga attics still store traditional beans of every hue’ wheat , buckwheat, amaranth, millets, corn, small onions and hill garlic, to name a few. These seeds are fast depleting as they are not being planted and multiplied as farming is no longer the popular choice in this agrarian community.

Besides traditional seeds, many seeds of many exotics like lettuce, various greens, exotic radishes, celery, dill and fennel are exorbitant and is not affordable to the small farmer.

With this is mind ET has procured seeds saved some of our women farmers like Lalitha, Subbi and Chitra. With a futuristic seed bank in mind ET is using the skills and devotion of Kamala our farm hand of many moons to plant and multiply them. These also include seeds from heirloom seed collectives across India.

Kamala has successfully multiplied a variety of heirloom wheat hundred fold and have planted the seeds expecting another hundred fold. The process is slow but critical to the preservation of these seeds that may otherwise be lost forever.

We had a bumper crop of 10 kgs of Kufri Giridhari potato seed for every 1 kg grown organically by Chitra, our small woman farmer from Jagadala village. Chitra’s small plot of land attracted a lot of farmers from the larger Nilgiri Organic Mission and officials of the Government Horticultural Mission. They visited her fields  to learn about her successful cultivation and multiplication of potatoes without using chemicals which are the bane of our hills. These seeds will be shared with other farmers.

Chitra’s potatoes also found their way to the high table of the President of India when he visited the Nilgiris and her effort was appreciated by the District Collector and other district horticultural top brass!

August

As a sequel to our seed initiative, we celebrated Indian Independence Day at our local farmers outlet by giving our patrons seeds saved by our farmers. We promised them a reward for the one who multiplied the most seeds in the kitchen gardens! Therefore bringing awareness of seed saving and protection to the larger Nilgiri community.

ET is represented on the district steering committee of Fair Trade towns India, an initiative of World Fair Trade Organisation (WFTO), which met recently to plan the years evens in the four big towns in the Nilgiris.

September

With reducing covid cases, our markets opened up and we are back to production and sale from our own two farms. Many of our small farmers who had suffered the brunt of covid were also delighted that we support them with fair prices and sale of fruit and other perishables that were falling off the tree a rotting for many months.

Abey and his wife Ramani, a husband and wife team farming on their small plot of land in Gudalur got some timely relief. They were able to buy a laptop for their daughter with their ET earnings. She is a post graduate student and was attending classes online on a small mobile phone.

ET is also at the final stages of a long process to procure formal organic certification from the Tamil Nadu State Organic Certification body (TNOCD) for 35 small farmers mostly women.