Aheli Moitra
A farmer from Sümi Village in Phek district has an ancestral tale to tell. Her mother once narrated to her the story of millet and paddy seeds—male and female ‘siblings’ respectively as per folklore. With ‘her’ high requirement for water, paddy claimed the valleys of the land for ‘herself’. Millet, though could endure great hardship, was hurt and decided to leave the lands once and for all. But the river shrimp intervened—we are both yellow and complement each others’ tastes when eaten together, said the shrimp to the millet. Convinced, millet decided to stay on in the rugged hills where it continues to flourish alongside its many siblings, including paddy, maize, pulses and vegetables.
In Naga folklore, seeds show a high degree of pluralist solidarity. In the shared community system of jhum cultivation, a variety of millets can grow alongside an equally vibrant variety of crops—pumpkin, ash pumpkin, sesame, chilly, cucumber, beans (5-6 varieties), gourd, tomatoes, yam, maize (3-4 varieties), brinjal, basil, bitter ball and the list goes on to even 60 in some fields.
People follow close on the heels of harvest. The produce harvested from these fields can be so large, each family lands up sharing much of their produce with neighbours, the elderly or those unable to tend their fields. What is surplus is sold in the market when possible.
In Wokha, we read this week in The Morung Express how women go from their farm to doorsteps in town to sell surplus produce that makes many women economically independent. Elsewhere, given the lack of transportation and organized marketing, women are coming together as collectives to send their agro biodiversity surplus to towns closest to their villages. More and more, people are upholding the need for communities to preserve their sturdy indigenous seeds, and seed banks are becoming the new investment into the sovereignty of communities.
But there is a worldwide project to undermine such seed sovereign communities from becoming self determining nations. At the recent Biodiversity Festival held at the North East Network Resource Centre in Chizami, Phek, a speaker highlighted the dangers of capitalist control of seeds—3 to 4 companies around the world are quickly becoming owners of all of the world’s seeds.
While buying seeds is not an option for many marginalized communities around the world, particularly indigenous ones, governments in these areas are pushing hybrid seeds and methods of cultivation. Male dominated village councils remain bent on cash crops—the monocropping culture brought thus has led to soil deterioration in many parts of indigenous peoples’ hills, also giving rise to capital centric social conflict. Jhum cultivation, of late, has carved a sorry figure due to excessive burning of forests and reduction in jhum cycles. A complete ban on burning to tackle the situation has led to reduction in traditional agriculture, shifting people more towards monocropping cultures. It remains unclear how this has benefitted the people, or will do in the long run. It is thus up to village councils to become aware of global changes that seek to undermine indigenous peoples’ rights to their land, seeds and sovereignty. To gear up for challenges ahead, indigenous communities need their womenfolk in village (to top) level policy making to maintain ethics of the seeds of solidarity.
Ideas and comments may be shared at moitramail@yahoo.com
