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The lunch menu at the Rani Kajal Jeevan Shala School in Kakrana village of Madhya Pradesh shows a healthy mix of pulses, vegetables and millets. “Providing nutritious food to the children is our responsibility,” says Rayatibai, who runs the residential school for children of the Bhil tribal community in the village, located in Alirajpur district. “The village shops do not sell the local varieties of cereals and vegetables we want. So, all of us, including the children, grow the varieties on the school premises. It also helps us conserve the seeds,” she says.
Rayatibai was inspired to take up cultivation and conservation of local produce after joining Mahila Jagat Lihaz Samiti (MAJLIS), a non-profit focussed on the health and food security of the Bhil community in the district. “With help from 50 women from various villages, we conserve seeds of local native cereals such as pearl millet, ragi, kodo millet, little millet, sangri, bhadi, bhatti and rala. We also conserve saath dini makke, a variety of maize that was traditionally cultivated by the Bhils; local varieties of rice and pulses; and vegetables,” says Subhadra Kharpede, founder of MAJLIS.
Along with her husband Rahul Banerjee, a social activist who also works with the Bhil tribe, Kharpede collects native seeds from conservators in the state and gives them to the women to cultivate. After harvest, the women set aside some crops for their families and deposit some seeds in a seed bank at Pandutalab village in the district.
Kharpede and Banerjee have been working with the community since the 1990s, helping them preserve their forests and apply for forest rights. Post Independence, demand for timber and forest produce led to deforestation in Alirajpur. With most men of the Bhil community having left their villages in search of work in other states, women took charge to save their forests. With Kharpede and Banerjee, they formed a trade union called the Khedut Mazdoor Chetna Sangath and have so far preserved over 13,000 hectares of forestland across 70 villages.
During this time, however, the women noticed a change in their diet. With the Green Revolution and the push for high-yielding crop varieties, indigenous crops were replaced with hybrid maize. There was also an increase in the use of pesticides and fertilisers.
“Living in forested areas, we do not have easy access to towns and markets, nor do we always have enough money to buy produce. We had resorted to bland gruel made from maize, which had no nutritional value,” says Tejlibai, a resident of Khodamba village in the district. “After we started producing our seeds and cultivating them, we at least have enough food at home for our children and grandchildren. Native crops also do not require pesticides and fertilisers, cutting down costs,” she says.
Now, apart from conserving the seeds, the women of MAJLIS visit agriculture and seed festivals in other states to display and sell them. “We are now planning to open more seed banks, including one at the Rani Kajal Jeevan Shala school,” says Kharpede.
This article was originally published in the 16-30 June, 2024 print edition of Down To Earth