A sweet fragrance wafts from the paddy fields as soon as one enters Daheli village in Kanpur Dehat district. The source of the aroma is the unusually tall and thin stalks of Rambhog paddy, farmers in the village tell Down To Earth (DTE). “The sweet smell, and taste, of Rambhog differentiates it from other paddy varieties. We had nearly forgotten about it though. I have been growing it for the past four years, after I heard that farmers were trying to revive it,” said Shishupal of the village.
Some 60 villages in Kanpur Dehat and Kanpur Nagar districts, located in the Terai region of Uttar Pradesh, have worked since 2016 to restart cultivation of Rambhog, which disappeared from the fields and food plates at the turn of the century. More than 300 farmers, including urban farmers from Kanpur city, have left behind hybrid paddy crops for Rambhog. The farmers get 60-70 per cent of the harvest processed, keep 10 per cent of this for self-consumption, and sell the rest. “There is so much demand for the rice that we can hardly keep up,” said Shishupal.
Agrees Arman Ali, chief executive officer of Ekta Nature Farming Producer Company Limited in Kanpur Nagar district. The farmer-producer company, located in Chhabbaniwada hamlet of Harnoo village, processes and sells Rambhog under its Dhanika brand for Rs 150 per kg. “This year, we have sold 100 quintals (1 quintal is 100 kg) of Rambhog bought from the farmers. Only 40-50 quintals are left. We also have advance orders from traders in Delhi, Punjab, Ghaziabad and Kanpur, who buy the paddy from us each month,” Ali told DTE.
Farmers also sell the paddy to other brands such as Utsav Arth, which sells organic produce in Kanpur and offers Rambhog rice for Rs 180 a kg. Since 2023, the farmers have seen earnings of about Rs 1 lakh per acre.
Visiting the villages of Kanpur Dehat and Kanpur Nagar districts in September 2024, DTE learned that the high earnings primarily come from saving on input costs. “Last year, I was able to save Rs 85,000 in the kharif season by cultivating Rambhog rice in an acre (0.4 hectares),” Jasmer, a farmer in Daheli village, tells DTE. “Rambhog does not require urea, pesticides and insecticides, or diammonium phosphate fertiliser,” says Jasmer.
In fact, farmers explain to DTE, fertilisers and pesticides end up harming the crop. Its stalks can grow up to 1.5 m in length and are thin but quite heavy. Excess chemicals increase the vegetative growth further, which the stalks cannot withstand, and so they fall over before they can grow properly.
“We only use homemade compost like jeevamrutham and ghana jeevamrutham (organic mixtures of cow dung and urine, jaggery, flour and soil in different proportions), daspatti kadha (a natural bio-repellent made with cow urine and leaves of trees such as neem, mango, custard apple and lantana) and buttermilk, whose cost are almost negligible,” says Jasmer. Irrigation can be managed, even during periods of scanty or no rainfall, by pumping groundwater for eight hours at a cost of Rs 1,600. As of September, Jasmer expected to harvest up to 20 quintals and sell each for Rs 5,500.
This success is a stark difference from about two decades ago, before Rambhog disappeared. The variety was grown across the Terai region, heavily populated by small and marginal farmers. Agriculture was the major occupation, but largely for self sustenance. “There were not many markets here. Everyone grew native crops for themselves and their families. Rambhog was popular for its strong aroma and taste, even though its yield was poor at around 8 quintals per acre,” recalls farmer Pushpendra Singh of Nadia Khurd village in Kanpur Nagar.
Around 1995-2000, rice mills started to open in the region and farmers were incentivised to grow hybrid crops. “The mills wanted high-yielding crops and promoted hybrid varieties. Farmers were enticed by the promise of higher prices and began to shift away from Rambhog,” says Shishupal.
In 2016, a group of farmers and agricultural experts in Chhabba-niwada hamlet decided to revive Rambhog, which they deemed healthier than paddy grown with chemical inputs. “But finding Rambhog seeds was not easy. We began the search in Kanpur, contacting rice traders, old farmers and then ventured to nearby villages. Any seeds we found could not be verified as genuine,” says Rana Singh Parihar, an agricultural scientist with the group, which went on to become the Shramik Bharti, a non-profit comprising farmers, members of the Ekta Nature Farmer Producer Company, and agricultural scientists from educational institutions in the region. “Finally, we got 2.5 kg Rambhog seeds from the Lalu area in Rasulabad, Kanpur Dehat district,” Parihar, programme manager of the Shramik Bharti, told DTE.
The non-profit also worked on the fields to create conducive conditions for Rambhog growth. This was especially necessary in Kanpur Dehat district, where the land had turned barren with excessive use of urea and gypsum and increased salinity. “For instance, in Daheli village, we tested the soil and found it devoid of necessary and friendly microbes,” said Naveen Arora of Bhimrao Ambedkar University, Lucknow, who works with Shramik Bharti.
“We connected farmers using natural and organic inputs to our project and gave them one of our formulations, which we call consortia in scientific lan-guage. It includes friendly bacteria like the species Pseudomonas, Bacillus and Rhizobium, fungi like Trichoderma, and agricultural waste,” says Arora. “The formulation and organic inputs healed the barren land and allowed for better yields,” he added.
The revival began with three farmers in Chhabbaniwada, Dibbaniwada and Padaraha villages in Kanpur Nagar, and two in Kurian Purva village of Kanpur Dehat. The first year provided enough yield to expand the distribution of seeds.
Roping in more farmers was easier than first believed. “People heard Rambhog was back and approached the farmers directly for seeds. This also sparked the idea to market the crop through organic traders and farmer-producer organisa-tions,” says Parihar. “The exact number of farmers and acreage may be higher, because we only know the farmers directly involved and not those take seeds from them,” said Parihar.
The soft and fragrant straw provides another means of income, as cattle prefer it. “We have three buffaloes, who relish the straw. It has led to a difference in their milk production as well,” said Jasmer. In a way, the revival of Rambhog has breathed new life into Terai’s farmers.
(The story was first published in the 16-31 December, 2024 print edition of Down To Earth.)