Cauvery Farmers Cultivate Indigenous Rice for Resilience

Context 

Farmers of the Cauvery Delta region in South India are returning to orginal practices of farming and cultivating traditional rice varieties to counter current hurdles. Through cultivation of such durable rice varieties, those cultivated in the Cauvery Delta region of India, referred to as the rice bowl of the region, farmers are now able to cope with biotic and abiotic challenges and meet the country’s food needs.

Traditional Rice Varieties Offer Resilience

• A number of the popular traditional rice varieties (TRVs) that are characteristic of the region’s high-diversity land uses for instance in the South Asian Cauvery Delta are known to have inherent adaptive capabilities to climate change and extremes. They came with certain characteristics that enable them to adapt to different environmental factors like water stress, soil salinity, water logging and diseases. 
• Fostering the above-mentioned resilient TRV components, the farmers in the Cauvery Delta are lowering their exposure to climate risks and thus increasing their yields. Thus, the use of stress-tolerant rice varieties is one of the major practices of risk management among farmers in the region. 

Measures on Support of Traditional Method of Rice Cultivation 

• Innovations such as the ‘Save our Rice’ campaign have encouraged the Cauvery Delta farmers to relook at traditional farming and try sowing rice stragely and switching to better breeds of rice. These initiatives are towards preserving and encouraging the growing of traditional rice varieties, which are usually superior to imported types in terms of the locality’s soil and health value. 
• Due to their functions in conserving the genetic stocks of protected traditional rice varieties, the community seed banks can provide such seeds to farmers. These seed banks also bring and distribute TRVs or even exchange them between the farmers which help in conserving rice bio-diversity at the landscape level. 

Benefits of Traditional Rice Varieties

• High-yielding samples of rice are believed to be more resistant and nutritious from standard double samples of rice but ancient kinds of rice have some benefits over the new ones. Indeed, the majority of the TRVs are known to have good medicinal value and these crops are ideal for organic farming. While cultivating these varieties farmers are able to minimise the use of chemicals which affects the practice of herbalism. 
• Furthermore, TRVs contain better taste and cooking aptitude than Pent, thus consumers in the local markets prefer buying them. This preference can result in better chances of farmers getting good prices for their produce and hence, better standards of living.

Challenges and Opportunities 

• On hand, traditional rice cultivation being a better option for the farmers of Cauvery Delta they still suffer some problems, one of the being the accessibility of TRV seeds, poor knowledge of the favourable qualities of being into TRV seeds and rivalry from the swaths of modern rice. These are not easy to solve and need the cooperation of a number of the stakeholders which include the policy makers , researchers and the extension workers. 
• One opportunity is by encouraging the growth of TRVs through bonus, subsidy, and market access. So by encouraging suitable policies and the availability of TRV seeds, farmers can be motivated to take on such types of varieties. 

Conclusion 

• Today, farmers of Cauvery Delta are exhibiting some of the climate change adaptation measures, for instance, use of traditional farming practices and production of traditional rice varieties. They are not only a contribution to the food security, but also to the sustainability of agriculture and the preservation of the genetic rice diversity of Southeast Asia. 
• To complement these efforts, awareness on ASR, conservation of regional seeds, enhancement of the community seed banks, and marketing of the products with reference to the TRV need(s) to be highlighted. Thus, teamwork in the approaches towards development with farmers and policy makers in combination with other interested parties in Cauvery Delta assures a sustainable development for the rice farming communities.

Source: DTE

UPSC Prelims Practice Question

Q. Which of the following statements about the revival of traditional rice farming in the Cauvery delta are correct?

1. Farmers are shifting to more resilient traditional rice varieties like Mappillai Samba, Karrupu Kavuni, and Thooya Malli.
2. Traditional rice varieties require less water and are more drought-tolerant compared to hybrid varieties.
3. Cultivating traditional rice varieties helps reduce the use of chemical fertilisers and pesticides.
4. Marketing and selling traditional rice at fair prices is easy for farmers.

Select the correct answer using the codes given below:

a) 1, 2 and 3 only

b) 2, 3 and 4 only

c) 1, 3 and 4 only

d) 1, 2, 3 and 4

Ans: “a”

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