Revival of Millets based Mixed Cropping in Rayagada Debjeet Sadangi Living Farms Rayagada, a district of Southern Odisha has 56% of Adivasi population. The Kondh, largest Adivasi group, make up 72% of the Adivasi population in the district. Their food requirements are met primarily through local farm production on small lands, the hill slopes and the forest. Living Farms visited some of these Adivasi villages comprising of hills and plains in 2007and 2008. According to our interaction with village elder, they grew varieties of crops through mixed-cropping practices. This practice helped them in maintaining soil fertility .Seeds were stored after each harvest and exchanged, ensuring the local adaptability and availability of seeds to produce several varieties of foods.This practice continued till late 80s and early 90s when government extension agents came to villages to promote high yielding rice varities, with a promise of bumper yields and higher income . The men, especially the young ones, were drawn towards the promotion of bumper crops. They were joined by their spouses in support of growing high yielding varieties of rice which would then help them get away from the hand pounding of millets. Many succeeded to convince their partners to give the high yielding rice varieties a try. However, mothers had tried to caution their children about the dangers of replacing millets and pulses with the rice that was being promoted by the Block officials. They asked, what would happen to their Kondh Samaj if their children stopped cultivating and eating millets? What would they offer to their village deity – the Dharani Penu, if villagers stopped growing millets in their village? What would happen if it would lead to indebtedness? Whether the Block rice would sustain them during drought years? Yet, the non-adivasi and a section of the adivasi farmers, with medium lands, decided to grow high yielding rice. The farmers saw the growth of rice 2 to 3 times higher compared to millets from the same land. It had mobilized many other farmers to switch over to growing paddy. People stopped growing difficult to mill crops and rice took up as a part of the diet leading to loss of seeds of all such crops and their varieties. They continued to grow two varieties (120 and 140 days, duration) of finger millet, maize, and pigeon pea, as these were essential staple foods and a source for cash. However, after 4 years, according to villagers, the rice yield from their land had started to decline. The farmers consulted the extension agent who had distributed paddy, and this time he suggested them to change their seeds and buy new ones from Block office along with fertilisers from the market. Farmers found themselves being forced to buy chemical fertilisers and seeds from the market. To buy these inputs, farmers took loans from local traders at an interest rate of 120%. In the bargain many of them lost their pineapple fields and sago palm trees to their lenders for not being able to repay the loan. .It was a shocking experience for many of them to buy seeds from the market. They had never bought these seeds earlier. Use of market seeds and chemicals wasn’t their cultural norm. Traditionally, women offer their local seeds to their Dharani Penu , the village diety before they are sown to seek her blessings for a good harvest. .Their problems were compounded by frequent droughts between 2002 and 2006. The high yielding paddy could not withstand water stress and the villagers did not have seeds of millets other than finger millet. At the same time, plantations of Eucalyptus on uplands termed as ‘waste lands’ by outsiders got expanded by a local paper mill while the forest department under took Teak plantation, Pongomia in natural forests as a part of some projects. The village women were quite worried with the changes in their forest. Their concern was such plantations may reduce availability of forest foods. The forest foods helped them to survive drought years. The Forest department had put up restrictions for people to grow millets on hill slopes by threatening them with filing cases against them. The Process of Revival As one of the first steps, Living Farms had meetings with Kutumba , their traditional governance structure, and separate discussions with women on preparing the revival strategy. For women the revival was for more than just for economic reasons. They wanted their children and the young daughter-in-laws to recognise the link between who they are , their land , forest and the village diety. The elderly men wanted to revive mixed cropping. They had shared the names of potential villages, panchayats and blocks where there was a possibility of retrieving seeds of different millets and pulses. Meetings were organised with Kutumb in villages to work out the revival strategy.

The few steps taken Farmers visited to the neighbouring villages and to other relatives in the neighbouring blocks and panchayats in between January and March in 2009 to collect seeds. They had discussions amongst themselves on how they had to discontinue a few their rituals because of loss of seeds. Many difficulties had to be encountered during drought as the short duration varieties of seeds which they used to broad cast on hill slopes in the 4th week of May was no more with them and to add to their misery the household debt haunted the villagers. This process contributed to develop a critical awareness within people on the depth and width of the damage caused due to loss of seeds .They had collected small quantities of seeds of four more millets and in the year 2010, farmers from 30 villages grew 8 varieties. Living Farms since then has been supporting exchange of seeds and experiences amongst farmers of neighbouring panchayats and blocks. This happens through a structured annual event and in an informal way when they meet in village haats , and / or visit each others’ village . Farmers from more than 20 panchayats from 3 blocks had participated in these exchanges in 2015 . Organising local food festivals at village level . Women bring in a number of recipes made out of millets, sorghoum , maize , pulses and beans etc. The children and youth taste and witness the diversity of their food, while mothers share their concerns amongst themselves on the slowly growing disinterest in children towards millets . Men share seeds amongst them. These festivals got quite popular among people. In the midst of fun and joy these festivals have contributed to a few concrete actions .The women have been resisting the attempts to grow industrial plantation on their millets growing hill slopes and have begun to reclaim their millets growing fields from eucalyptus plantation. Living Farms supports the annual block level food festival which is generally organised after the last crop, Pigeon pea is harvested in February. The villagers continue to organise their local level food festivals. Facilitating farmer to farmer learning and teaching on millets based mixed cropping. Once in a year, a 3 ~ 4 days workshop is organised for young farmers with senior and knowledgeable farmers as resource people. There are 120 such resource farmers in our project area. Their farms have become learning site for other farmers. They have been volunteering to visit their neighbouring villages to help their fellow farmers. It has been helping to bring in more farmers and land under millets based mixed cropping. In 2015 mixed cropping was done on approximately 10,000 hectares. Documenting the local rain cycle and its effect on the traditional agriculture calendar and the harvest. We have been observing and documenting how erratic the rain cycle has become since 2011 . There have also been natural disasters in the last three years in the form of severe cyclone, and drought. The analysis of the documentation is shared with farmers and they are urged to compare the performance of farms having mono crop / or two three varieties and a reasonably mixed farm. The relatively better harvest out of mixed farms than mono cropped ones have contributed to expand the area under millet based mixed cropping. Workshops get organised once in a year for farmers with scientists as resource persons on improving soil health and disease and pest management and follow up is done to ensure that the learning from the workshops is implemented. The average yield out of an hectare of mixed farm was 1.14 metric ton in 2015 . The increase in the yield without any external inputs even though rain was erratic has been mobilising farmers to go for millets based mixed cropping. The sowing begins in the 4th week of May and continues till 4th week of August. It offers farmers, options to sow even after 3 months of sowing the first crop and harvest the first crop; 3 to 4 weeks after the last crop was sown. Similarly, the harvest period is stretched over four month, from the fourth week of September to the fourth week of January .The crops and their varieties being grown by farmers in our operational area in their mixed farms are mentioned as below Sl No 1

Name of the Crop Finger millet

2

Little Millet

3

Foxtail Millet

4

Barnyard Millet

Duration in Days 140 120 120 120 90 140 140 90 65 65 65 90 90 120 90 80

5

Pearl Millet

6 7 8

Kodo Millet Proso Millet Maize

9

Sorghum

10

Pigeon pea

11

Horse gram

12

Black Gram

13

Green Gram

14

Cow Pea

15

Sesame

16

Roselle Castor

17

Niger

90 90 120 65 120 90 90 90 90 90 180 180 120 120 120 180 180 150 90 90 90 120 120 90 120 90 90 120 120 90 120 120 120 120 150 110

We have been documenting Household Dietary diversity of a selected sample in every season for the last three years. The analytical findings are shared with households including its significance. It has been mobilising farmers to improve crop diversity in their mixed farms and food diversity in their daily diets. The women farmers are trained to improve their skills on seed conservation and management of community seed banks .There are 87 women led community seed banks having seeds of crops grown by local farmers in their mixed farms. Most of the farmers have become self sufficient in terms of their seed requirements. 75% of our project villages have submitted their community and individual claims under joint ownership of women and men as per the Forest Rights Act. It will guarantee the rights of the community and individuals to continue to grow millets on hill slopes and plains .The individual claims are getting recognised. It will take a while for the community claims to get recognised. The process of mapping, documenting and submitting the claims contribute a lot to mobilise the communities to assert their rights over forest land and continue to grow their foods. Community dialogue between elders and youth is organized once in a year to share the knowledge about traditional agricultural practices and involve the youth in re-establishing their socio-cultural linkages with food, forest, and agriculture. It is an effort to mobilise the local youth towards their food and agriculture. It is a step towards reinforcing the millets revival process. One of our immediate challenges is to improve the per hectare yield from 1 to 1.14 metric ton to 2 metric tons without compromising the resilience of the farms. For, the farmers in our project area are not prepared to take economic risks. These are factors mentioned above that have been contributing the revival of millets in the area.