-The Times of India BATAGUDA (Odisha): Women and men working on the hillsides is a common sight when travelling through Odisha's Kandhamal district. All day, they crouch in the scorching sun, using crude tools to break large rocks into little stones. It takes each person several days to fill a 5ft-tall container with enough stones to earn about Rs 900. Most tribal women do this backbreaking work but with hardly any proteins...
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Odisha tribals lose food source as teak plantations deluge their ‘forest farms’ -Jayashree Nandi
-The Times of India BURLUBARU, KANDHAMAL: Kanigalaru Majhi's food stocks are running out. A middle aged woman from the Kutia Kondh tribe in Kandhamal's Burlubaru village in Odisha's Kandhamal district, Majhi is worried there will be a time soon when they will no longer be able to depend on the hills for their food because teak plantations have supplanted entire patches of forest where Kanigalaru and her tribespeople sourced millets, pulses, tubers...
More »Politics of Food -Gayatri Jayaraman
-India Today Agriculture powerhouse Madhya Pradesh still suffers from high levels of malnutrition, a contrast that exposes our flawed food policies Madhya Pradesh in mid-March is heavy with the scent of the Mahua blossom. Heaped at village bazaars, and now restricted largely to brewing liquor, its pungent smell is fast disappearing from indigenous tribal stews and curries. On the road to Petlawad and Alirajpur on the western edge of the state, farmers...
More »Tribal Priestesses Become Guardians of Seeds in Eastern India -Manipadma Jena
-IPS News NIYAMGIRI: As the rhythmic thumping of dancing feet reaches a crescendo, the women offer a song to their forest god for a bountiful harvest. Then, with earthen pots on their heads and their spiritual creatures – a pigeon and a hen – in tow, they proceed in single file on a long march away from their village of Kadaraguma, located on the Niyamgiri mountain range in the Rayagada District of...
More »Taste, cost and climate change prompt return of folk rice
-PTI KOLKATA: Having lost the race to high- yielding varieties after the green revolution, a number of indigenous varieties of rice are now making a comeback due to their aroma, taste, low input cost and resilience to climate change. "More and more consumers are asking for the folk varieties these days as the taste is better. Farmers are also showing lot of interest in these varieties, which they had once forgotten," MC...
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