-The Times of India NAGPUR: Reviving the debate once again over local indigenous variety versus the ones promoted by agriculture universities, an NGO Gramin Yuva Pragatik Mandal (GYPM) took up the challenge to prove that local indigenous seeds were more effective and scripted a success story. In the process, the NGO not just proved its claim right but also produced 19 traditional varieties of rice on a 10-acre plot within a...

-TheLogicalIndian.com In a bid to save the nearly-extinct indigenous rice variety, Mahan Chandra Borah started a unique library. This library is unique because it has collection of heirloom rice landraces(local) of the Assam. “Annapurna Rice Seed Library” seeks to store and promote the cultivation of these rice seeds. Rice is grown in abundance in North Eastern part of our country. Assam is home to many different varieties of rice.There are four types...

-IndiaClimateDialogue.net In north Bihar, where floods devastate standing crops with increasing regularity in an era of climate change, a marginalised community is fighting all odds to protect an indigenous flood-resistant variety of rice. Sahorwa village is caught between the embankments of two major rivers in north Bihar. Between the Kosi river’s western embankment and Kamla Balan river’s eastern embankment, this village of 110 Musahar families remains flooded for seven to eight months...

-The Hindu Over the years we have lost over a lakh varieties of native rice. One district in Odisha is rediscovering some of them It is a balmy winter morning when I meet Kamli Bataraa, an ebullient Adivasi farmer, at her home in Belugan, in southern Odisha’s Koraput district. There is a hum across the village from the threshing of just-harvested paddy. When I ask Kamli about the rice varieties she grows,...

-Mumbai Mirror A behind the scenes look at what’s driving the region’s return to traditional paddy techniques. It’s certainly not the global shift towards organic cultivation. A recent study conducted by Harvard University has established that consuming just one cup of white rice (polished rice) a day can put you at risk of diabetes, regardless of your nationality or whether you have a family history of the disease. Bhairav Saini lives in...