Subscribe
Kusum and Narayan Gaikwad are likely to be remembered for long in their village, Jambhali, in Kolhapur district of Maharashtra. For the past five decades, they have been the sole cultivators of kabburi makka, an indigenous variety of maize.
While all other families in the primarily agrarian village cultivate hybrid maize, Kusum Gaikwad sows seeds of the off-white kabburi makka twice a year.
After harvest, she pulls out four ears of corn, ties them up with other maize and hangs them from the roof of their house to preserve the seeds for a year. The rest of the maize is used to make porridge and flatbread for the family, neighbours and friends.
Kabburi makka was earlier cultivated in the villages of western Maharashtra and northern Karnataka, where people believed it was more tasty and nutritious than other maize varieties. But like several native crops, it began to vanish after the advent of the Green Revolution and the push for hybrid crop varieties.
“Farmers began cultivating the hybrid varieties in the early 1970s, and the traditional ones were abandoned over the next two decades,” says Kusum Gaikwad. The primary reason behind the shift, she says, was that hybrid maize could be harvested in three months, while traditional varieties took four-five months to grow.
Today, many of her neighbours are able to grow 2,000 kg of high-yielding hybrid maize crops, as against 1,000-1,500 kg of traditional varieties. “Both hybrid and native varieties sell for R20 a kg; so there is no incentive to retain traditional crops,” she says.
Prasant Mohanty, executive director of Nirman, a non-profit working on ecological farming and sustainable livelihoods across the country, says, “In many areas, the hybrid varieties have completely replaced the traditional seeds because of government maize programmes. Hybrid maize also has a market."
Daisy John, a researcher with Delhi-based non-profit Public Health Foundation of India, adds, “Farmers are dependent on the hybrid varieties because they are not getting enough money for the traditional crops, which have longer crop cycles."
But the loss of native crops also led to disappearance of traditional meals like kabburi makka porridge and flatbread, says Kusum Gaikwad. “The porridge can be made using the hybrid maize, but it does not taste good and even lacks essential nutrients,” she says. Further, she says, as her neighbours began to cultivate more hybrid maize, their dependence on pesticides and fertilisers increased.
Knowing that this would harm the soil health in the long term, Kusum and Narayan Gaikwad decided to keep cultivating native varieties. They set aside 0.4 hectares (ha) of their 1.3 ha for kabburi makka, along with native varieties of emmer wheat, sorghum, pearl millet, rice and vegetables. The rest of the land is used for their primary crop, sugarcane.
"We do not grow kabburi makka for profit, but it has helped us survive for several decades when we did not have access to irrigation facilities. The variety, like other native maize crops, grows well with just rainfall," says Kusum Gaikwad.
Now, the Gaikwad family strives to revive widespread cultivation of kabburi makka. They often distribute seeds in their and nearby villages along with dishes made from them to encourage other farmers to grow them.
Farmer Supriya Kagwade from Khochi village, 32 km from Jambhali, has been inspired by Kusum’s initiative of preserving the traditional seeds. For the past five years, she has been making kabburi makka porridge for her family. “While everyone loves eating it, unfortunately, no one is interested in preserving the seeds. But the Gaikwad family is working hard to save kabburi makka," she says.
This was first published in the 1-15 July, 2024 Print edition of Down To Earth