Kerala agriculturist revives 1,000 native rice varieties inspired by Japanese book

Thiruvananthapuram: A book changed Usha Soolapani’s life. In the 1980s, Masanobu Fukuoka’s The One-Straw Revolution inspired the Palakkad agriculture officer to quit chemical farming.

Witnessing the ill-effects of Endosulfan spraying in Kasaragod, she joined hands with Thanal, Kerala’s environmental collective, to launch the Save Our Rice Campaign.

Between 2005-2018, the group travelled across 6 states – Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, West Bengal, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Kerala – collecting folk rice seeds stored by farmers in clay pots.

Today, over 30,000 farmers maintain Rice Diversity Blocks and seed banks, conserving 1,000+ varieties like Mappilai Samba, Raktha Sali and Rajamudi.”Paddy is not just a crop, it is an ecosystem,” says Usha, now a member of ASHA Kisan Swaraj.

The effort comes as Kerala’s paddy area has shrunk from 8 lakh hectares to 1.8 lakh hectares.