Not all weeds seen in millet farms are villains but uncultivated crops

Weeds are no more villains but are uncultivated food or voluntary crops for most women farmers who practice organic millet farming in Telangana’s rural pockets.

These crops sustain the poor and enrich their food basket. Many uncultivated plants that sprout in millet farms are edible when they are tender, usually before flowering. Furthermore, millet’s resistance to pests and diseases keeps chemical fertilisers at bay and makes uncultivated greens safe for consumption.

Weeds enhance the diversity on the farm and ensure nutritional security, according to most women farmers. They consider weeds would acquire the nature of beneficial plants over time. While the harmful weeds are weeded out through organic methods, others are kept intact as they are integral to their platter.

A graph showing the number of voluntary crops between 1999 and 2003. 

Since many of the women agricultural labourers in the Deccan region are dalits and are at the lowest rung of the socio-economic ladder, their perspectives are very significant from the point of view of gender and poverty.

Since 1989, the Deccan Development Society (DDS), an agri-based non-profit, has taken the lead in understanding the role of uncultivated foods in the lives of the poor. The society identified and classified over 80 uncultivated foods consisting of vegetables, greens and berries.

DDS collaborated with the Centre for Indigenous People’s Nutrition and Environment, McGill University and International Development and Research Canada, both located in Canada, for a detailed study on uncultivated food from millet farms. 

Fresh edible greens collected from farms were sent to the National Institute of Nutrition, Hyderabad, for analysing of their composition. The results revealed that each plant is a multipurpose nutrition capsule. They are rich in iron, calcium, potassium, zinc, magnesium and almost all vitamins. 

Besides ensuring food security, voluntary crops do some ecosystem services by providing medicine, fuel wood, and cattle fodder. Most women here have traditional knowledge of medicinal plants. Some uncultivated plants go into compost pits, enhancing the soil’s nutritional content.

The seeds of these weeds are usually germinated through farmyard manure, including waste from kitchens and cattle sheds. However, their regeneration halts with the shift to chemical fertilisers.

Organic manure that keeps soils loose and airy provides layers for the tiny seeds to germinate. The use of chemicals and mechanisation of dryland agriculture in millet farms reduce the availability of uncultivated greens.

If chemical fertilisers are applied, they harden the upper crust of the soil and make it impossible for the delicate seeds to break open the upper crust and come out. In such situations, they perish in the lower depths of the soil.

The traditional plough does not upturn the soil too much and allows most seeds to stay on the upper layers. But the land ploughed by tractors pushes these seeds to the bottom of a deep layer of soil, preventing them from regenerating. The use of pesticides on pulse crops also makes them toxic and non-edible. 

Most uncultivated greens are abundant during the rainy season (between July and October). From February to June, their availability decreases massively during summer. Dishes using them are primarily prepared during weeding in the rainy season. 

The recipes for preparing food using these are easy. It is as simple as adding chopped greens into semi-cooked and mildly cooking them. Sometimes, they are mixed with millet dough to make rotis or just with chillies, tamarind and salt to prepare chutney.

Millets are a miracle crop that simultaneously accommodates pulses, oilseeds and vegetables. As we commemorate the International Year of Millet, exploring all the aspects of millet farming is crucial: One of them being uncultivated greens.

Their free availability to poor women in rural and tribal areas tags them as a priority food that can meet the dietary diversity of vulnerable communities. Mainstream food scientists and nutritionists should explore the possibility of how voluntary crops can enhance the lives of the most marginalised sections of society, particularly the indigenous communities.

Views expressed are the author’s own and don’t necessarily reflect those of Down To Earth.

The author is a freelancer, focussing on the role of local food systems in enhancing the lives of marginalised communities.

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