We The People: The Seed Wizard Of Tehri Garhwal

Some call him a seed wizard. Others des­cribe Vijay Jardhari as the true crusader of the seed movement in the hills for his vast knowledge about indigenous seeds. “Our seeds are a treasure. Our hard-earned wealth. Farmers have preferred death over seed conservation for centuries. It is a symbol of ultim­ate freedom for us, rather than always being a question of life and death,” says the humble farmer from Tehri Garhwal in his remote village Jardhargaon.

To substantiate his point, he quotes historical facts about the 1852 famine, when British colonists found farmers dying of hunger but saving their seeds, which they could have easily consumed to escape hunger and even death.

A pioneer of the people’s movement starting from his village—Beej Bachao Andolan (Save Seeds Movement), Jardhari has an argument to every question, including a perception from certain quarters that the root cause of Sri Lanka’s current crisis are movements like this. “This is propaganda. The Sri Lanka crisis is due to political reasons or its inherent problems. We, in India, have proved that traditional farming has sustained the economy for centuries. There is a wide acceptability to the fact indigenous crops have survived droughts, rains and other all forms of climate change, etc.,” he maintains. Yet, he admits the need for necessary innovations even in growing indi­genous crops and use of local practices.

Having just returned from Assam where he was invited by the Ind­ian Council for Agricultural Research (ICAR) to discuss zero-bu­dget natural farming, Jardhari says, “The perception in the scientific community and researchers in this field is also slowly changing. I was told that there will be a full-fledged pedagogic subject on zero-­budget natural farming. This is heart-warming.”

But, says Jardhari, there is a conspiracy by MNCs to loot farmers of their seed wealth. “These companies provide their own seeds, spread diseases and then sell pesticides and insecticides to treat those. It’s complete slavery. Most farmers’ deaths have taken place in areas where they resorted to hybrid seed cultivation, used heavy doses of fertilisers and pesticides, and fell into debt traps,” says the 2009 winner of the Indira Gandhi Paryavaran Pura­skar.

It could be a result of his tireless efforts that the Indian government has also changed the terminology of mota anaj—millets—now calling it nutritious food or coarse grain. “Even after the pandemic, those who had discarded many traditional food grains and had switched over to theories propagated by multinational food chains have shifted back to Indian foods because of their nutritional values and capacity to fight diseases,” Jardhari says with pride.

Rajesh Pandey, a veteran journalist from Dehradun who has been following Jardhari’s work since 1986, says the 70-year-old is a revolutionary in thought and action. “Even at his age, he grows crops in the traditional way, and has revived nearly 320 indigenous rice strains, 220 varieties of kidney bean, 10 varieties of maize, 12 varieties of finger millet, and nine varieties of soyabean.”

Along with the food gra­ins, the list of heirloom agricultural products Jardhari has helped revive incl­ude oilseeds, pulses, vegetables and spices.

“When many species, crops and cereals were at the verge of extinction or genetically impacted by hybrid seeds, Jardhari was able to conserve hundreds of these strains. His concept of Baranaja, an old practice of growing 12 different species of a plant, is marvell­ous,” Pandey opines. Jardhari’s movement has also helped in the preservation of farm biodiversity, promotion of sustainable agriculture and sharing of knowledge globally.

(This appeared in the print edition as "Extinction Rebel")

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