Hand harvesting Indigenous paddy of our village with Gen Z

In Indigenous paddy farming, harvest is a big celebration particularly in Tamil culture. In Pre-colonial era i.e before British left India, majority of India's people dwelled in villages and their major occupation was agriculture. Whole village functioned as a community. When the harvest is over, the people carry paddy to a common place. Its called "kaalathu medu". There everyone from farmer, to carpenter, to farm labor to people who work on maintaining water bodies and other farm laborers of the village get their share of paddy. The exchanged paddy grains in the place of money. This was the barter system which they were practising for centuries. No central banks. This was prevalent in our village until 2000s. Paddy grains were their currency. So, harvest marks of importance in India villages particularly in Tamil nadu. Whole village comes to celebration mode during this festival. In Tamil calender, Thai month(in mid January) is celebrated as Pongal. Pongal is one of the major festivals of agricultural communities across Tamil nadu. This Pongal a which marks the paddy harvest season. People would clean their home. White wash it, as they prepare to welcome the harvest festival, Pongal.  People worship sun during these festivals to thank its role in farm harvest. During Pongal, people would cook with the new rice they got from the harvest. This dish is called Pongal. Pongal is typically a dish made out of rice. This is an important festival even today in Tamil nadu. Cows were integral part of farming in Traditional farming. Our ancestors did organic farming with the help of cow. Cow dung is used even today in agro ecological practises and other sustainable agricultural practises. So, Second day of festival, is celebrated as Cow Pongal. People give cow a good bath and treat them with respect and worship them thanking them for their help in producing their food. Cows gets their food i.e dried straw for their next year during the paddy harvest. During Pongal, Cows are celebrated by involving them in traditional cultural sports like traditional bull taming locally called Jallikattu. Other days of this harvest is marked by family get togethers within communities.

But, due to the influence of modern agriculture, this culture gets eroded. Machinery & chemical fertilizers has replaced cows & people who lived as a community. 

For paddy alone, India is a home to 2 lakh varieties of traditional paddy seeds. Many of them had medicinal properties. But, now, majority of these are extinct due to the industrial agriculture promoted during Green revolution.

Click here to read our report on Green revolution.

The seed diversity and breeding knowledge of our traditional farmers was so vast, that every village in India breeded its own paddy varieties suited to its local geographic and climatic conditions.

So, we started to searched for the native paddy seeds of our villages for years. We found some indigenous paddies that were grown in our village for centuries but discountinued due to the influence of industrial agriculture. So, after we recovered some of our villages own indigenous paddy seeds, which were grown during 16th Century. We grew them organically like our ancestors. We created an open event where people would participate and harvest paddy in hand. We traveled to a remote village where a villager has been known to manufacturing blades used for harvest traditionally. This place is one of oldest site where paddy grains were found during archaeological excavation. These paddy grains were radio carbon dated in Beta Laboratory, USA. Those grain belonged to 500 BC indicating early agricultural settlements. Finally, we reached the village and purchased those traditional iron blades used in traditional paddy harvest.

With the newly purchased traditional blades, with the traditional varieties of paddy that were grown in our village for centuries, we were a group of young people trying to get our hands dirty in farming. The environment was so magical. Many youngers who were used to urban culture found this experience very different from theirs.

Finally, after harvest, we collected the seeds in traditional way for the next season in the same manner our traditional farmers did. It was such an experience.

Traditionally Harvested Indigeneous Paddy in 2022