By Prativa Ghosh
Koraput, Odisha: “The sky now lies to us,” Farmer Tikima Pangi (56) from Semilguda village in Odisha’s Koraput district told 101Reporters. “My mother used to say that by looking at the clouds in May, we knew exactly when to start sowing. But now, the sky lies to us. The rains come whenever they want, and our seeds no longer know what season it is.”
Pangi grows Dangarbaji, a traditional paddy variety, on her one-acre farm. Once common across Koraput, Dangarbaji is a medium-duration rice that matures in about 110 to 115 days.
It has slender, light green stalks, withstands mild droughts, and thrives in poor soils without fertilisers. Older farmers recall that it was once preferred on upland slopes for its soft, fragrant rice that stayed fresh for days.
Pangi is among the few farmers in Koraput who still grow the crops their grandmothers once did.
But across Odisha’s tribal belt, ancient seed varieties are vanishing as erratic rainfall upends growing cycles, taking with them not just food security, but also cultural identity and collective memory.
Over the past six to seven years, Koraput has lost more than eight varieties of mandia (finger millet) and over 30 traditional crops.
The varieties now disappearing were perfectly matched to Koraput's old monsoon patterns. Earlier, traditional farming calendars worked because the rain could be trusted. Historical records show that Koraput receives about 1,950 mm of rainfall a year, spread evenly over roughly 90 days between June and late October.
Farmers followed the sky as faithfully as a clock. May showers signalled it was time to sow early mandia (finger millet). The first June rains meant rice planting. By August, the uplands turned green with crops ready to flower, and by October, the harvest began.
Mandia varieties like Kuya Gandhia took just 60 days to mature. Farmers planted them in May after the first rains and harvested them by July, ensuring food before the main rice season. Upland rice varieties such as Dangar Dhan and Paradhan took 100-110 days, timed to the steady June-to-October monsoon, explained Pangi.
That rhythm is now broken. Rainfall data from 2021 to 2025 shows wild swings that have made farming unpredictable. In 2021, June brought just 216.8 mm of rain while July saw 523 mm: a sudden imbalance that forced farmers to delay planting and miss the optimal window.
In 2024, June received 263.9 mm, July 238.9 mm, and August 318 mm. But in October, normally the harvest month, Koraput was deluged with 740.9 mm of rain, nearly five times its usual average of 165–305 mm. Floods swept through the fields just as the crops were ready to be cut.
“By late August or early September, our mandia plants flower and form grain,” said Parima Muduli, 39, a Paraja tribal farmer from Kurmakote village. “By October, they should be ready to harvest. But now October brings floods. The grain rots in the field. Fungus takes everything.”
Extreme rainfall events have also become more concentrated. On July 2, 2025, Koraput recorded 1,062.5 mm of rainfall in a single day, with Jeypore block receiving 141.8 mm and Kotpad 152 mm. Such downpours, once rare, now routinely exceed entire monthly averages within hours.
According to Jyotirmayee Lenka, a scientist at the Indian Institute of Soil and Water Conservation in Koraput, the district has seen both more frequent and more intense rainfall events between 2018 and 2025. “These changes,” she said, “are fundamentally altering upland farming conditions.”
The increasing unpredictability of rainfall has made it difficult for farmers to rely on traditional seed varieties, pushing many to abandon traditional crop cycles.
"My grandfather used to say that the kokila bird's call told us when to prepare the fields,” Lakhmi Khilo, an elderly farmer from Kundra block, told 101Reporters. “When the first thunderstorm came from the east, we knew it was time for Dangar Dhan. When the frogs sang for three nights, we planted mandia on the slopes. Now the birds call, but the rains don't come. The frogs sing, but floods arrive instead. Nature is confused, and we are confused with it.”
These elders watch their knowledge become useless in real time, a particularly cruel form of loss. Agricultural calendars memorised over lifetimes, techniques perfected through decades of practice, seed-selection wisdom accumulated across generations, all made obsolete by shifting climate patterns.
Budri Bhatra of Badnayakguda village said, “We taught our children to save the best seeds from the best plants. But what good is that teaching when the rains kill the best plants? When October brings water instead of harvest? Our knowledge is dying with us because it no longer works in this new world.”
Yet even as they mourn, these elders remain crucial sources of information for custodian farmers. They remember varieties that have already disappeared, describe their characteristics, and recall their uses.
“My grandfather showed me how to pick the strongest stalks of Haladichudi rice and plant them on higher slopes to survive the floods. Because of his guidance, I could save the variety even when unseasonal rains destroyed everything else,” said Raimati Gihuria, custodian farmer from Nuaguda. This oral history helps document what has been lost and informs efforts to preserve what remains.
The disappearance of traditional crop varieties in Koraput has brought losses that go far beyond agriculture. Traditional seeds once offered balanced nutrition suited to local diets. Aromatic rice such as Haladichudi, Basantichudi and Kalajeera provided distinct flavours and nutrients, while millets supplied calcium, iron and amino acids, crucial for communities with limited access to diverse food. As these crops disappear, tribal meals have grown monotonous, reduced largely to government-supplied ration rice.
The loss of seeds has also disrupted the region’s cultural rhythm. In August, farmers used to plant early-maturing crops such as Dangarbaji, Kuya Gandhia, Ladu Mandia, Kandul and Dangarrani. The first harvest was offered to local gods during Nua Khai Parab, the festival of new food.
“Now we cannot perform these rituals with the new hybrid rice because the early varieties are gone,” said Pangi. “Our children will grow up not knowing the taste of Dangarbaji or the ceremonies their great-grandmothers performed.” She remembered the first year the village could not offer traditional rice: “The entire village wept. It felt like breaking a sacred promise.”
Pangi has spent the past eight years saving nearly 70 traditional seed varieties of paddy, pulses and vegetables. Their names, she said, sound like poetry: Dangarbaji, Kalakandul, Pati Badei, Kaja, Dameni, Kalijima and Jhunta Bin.
Parima Muduli, who has preserved varieties like Biri Dhana and Sugandha, said these crops are part of the community’s identity. “The songs we sing during planting, the prayers we offer at harvest…they all mention these seed names. When the seeds vanish, our stories make no sense to our children.”
“These weren’t just crops,” added Raimati Ghiuria, 42, from Nuaguda village, known locally as the Queen of Millets for conserving over 70 rice and 30 millet varieties. “Kalajeera gave fragrance for festival meals. Machakanta was served to the guests. Tulasi rice was offered to gods. Each seed had a purpose, a story, a place in our lives.”
Traditional varieties were also living libraries of genetic adaptation. Drought-tolerant strains such as Kalajeera, Asamchudi, Ojan and Tulasi helped farmers survive erratic monsoons, while short-duration millets like Kuya Gandhia and Kuruma Bati ensured food during lean periods.
In 2022, Pangi planted Kuya Gandhia mandia in May, expecting it to mature within 60 days. But rains came late, and the few stalks that sprouted were washed away by July showers. “For the first time, I could not save a single seed,” she said. “I knew that the story of Kuya Gandhia might end with me.”
Farmers explained that such seeds once offered genetic insurance against climate shocks. “On our 8-acre farm, we harvest 12-14 quintals per acre from indigenous varieties,” said Ghiuria. “They survive floods and droughts that kill hybrids. If we lose them now, we’ll have nothing resilient left.”
Although hybrid seeds can yield 20 quintals per acre under ideal conditions, they depend on fertilisers, pesticides and irrigation. Only 9.3% of the cropped land in Koraput has irrigation access. Traditional varieties, grown organically with minimal inputs, yield 12.5quintals per acre even in dry years.
Hybrid paddy sells for about Rs 2,160 per quintal, while traditional varieties fetch anywhere between Rs 2,100 and Rs 5,000 per quintal. “High-value varieties like Kalajeera, Raghusahi and Lactimachi can go up to Rs 5,000 per quintal,” said Kartik Kumar Lenka, senior scientist at the MS Swaminathan Research Foundation in Jeypore. For farmers with limited inputs and rainfed fields, this price range often makes indigenous crops more economical despite their lower yields.
Yet procurement systems continue to favour hybrids. “Government policies reward volume, not sustainability,” said Ghiuria.
However, some indigenous rice varieties have slowly made their place in the markets. Ghiuria sells her organic rice for Rs30-Rs40 per kg, while heritage pigmented varieties like Kalajeera or Bali Raja fetch Rs300–Rs500 per kg in urban organic stores. “Even packaged Kalajeera now sells at Rs259 a kilo,” said Tankadhar Chendia from Machhara village. “Meanwhile, bulk hybrid rice sells for Rs30-Rs40. The difference speaks for itself.”
The immediate cause of seed loss in Koraput is simple: when rainfall patterns shift, crops fail. But the deeper reasons are more complex.
Traditional mandia (finger millet) varieties that matured in 60 days depended on early May showers. “Earlier, rains in May allowed tribal farmers to plant and harvest mandia by July or early August, ensuring food security,” said Tikima Pangi. “But now May rains are unreliable. If we plant and rains fail, the seeds are wasted. If we wait for July rains, the growing season is too short for 60-day varieties to mature before October floods.”
The result is a cruel choice — plant early and risk drought, or plant late and risk flood. Either way, short-duration varieties cannot survive. After several years of failed crops, farmers stop saving these seeds altogether. Once that happens, the varieties disappear from fields, then from seed stores, and finally from memory.
Lakhmi Khilo, an 82-year-old farmer from Kundra, remembers how Haladichudi, a rice that could survive late-September floods, was once saved from extinction. “I taught Raimati Ghiuria to select the strongest stalks and plant them on higher slopes, so they would survive when rains flooded the lowlands,” he said.
“Because of his guidance, I could save the seeds and grow Haladichudi even when floods came two years in a row,” said Ghiuria. “Without that knowledge, this variety might have vanished from Nuaguda forever.”
For upland rice varieties such as Dangar Dhan, Para Dhan and Mati Dhan, the problem is equally severe. These crops were once planted in May and harvested by August, completing their cycle before the monsoon waned. Now, the rainfall pattern has fractured.
Annual rainfall totals still appear adequate, but the timing has become erratic, with long dry spells followed by intense downpours. “Heavy rainfall events create artificial flooding, while reduced frequency of rain dries out the soil,” said Pangi. “Crops experience stress during crucial growth stages, and yields collapse. Eventually, farmers abandon the varieties.”
Koraput’s hilly terrain worsens the impact. Sudden, high-intensity rains cause soil erosion, stripping away the fertile topsoil from slopes. Without topsoil, even resilient traditional varieties cannot grow. By October, when crops are ready to harvest, excess rain often waterlogs the fields, leading to fungal infections and grain spoilage.
“The floods destroy not just the harvest,” Pangi said quietly, “but also the seeds we would have saved for the next season.”
The experiences of Koraput’s farmers mirror climate science projections for the region. Studies predict a 4%-16% increase in overall rainfall across Odisha, with a longer rainy season and more extreme precipitation events. But this doesn’t mean simply more rain — it means heavier downpours packed into shorter periods, separated by longer dry spells.
Debashish Jena, Senior Scientist at the IMD in Cuttack, calls this “rainfall seasonality stress” when not just the amount but the timing and distribution of rain shift beyond historical patterns. For rainfed districts like Koraput, where nearly 90% of farmers depend entirely on the monsoon, such stress is catastrophic. Crops bred for predictable rainfall cannot adapt quickly enough to survive.
The Odisha State Disaster Management Authority reported that unseasonal rains in 2023 caused severe crop damage in Koraput. But the word unseasonal itself is losing meaning — the seasons no longer follow any familiar rhythm. When October, once the harvest month, can now receive five times its normal rainfall, the agricultural calendar collapses.
If current trends continue, the outlook for Koraput’s traditional agriculture is bleak. Climate projections suggest rainfall variability will increase further, making it harder to sustain indigenous cropping patterns. As more varieties fail, farmers abandon them, and the region’s genetic reservoir of seeds shrinks — eroding the very biodiversity that once buffered it against droughts and floods.
Food security, too, is at risk. When tribal communities cultivated diverse traditional varieties, they had natural insurance: if one crop failed, others survived. Modern single-crop systems lack that resilience. A single pest, disease, or weather shock can now wipe out entire harvests. The loss of drought-tolerant and flood-resistant varieties removes the very tools farmers need most in a changing climate.
The seeds of Koraput are vanishing, and with them, centuries of wisdom, culture, and resilience that once allowed communities to live in step with the rain.
This project is supported by the Internews Earth Journalism Network with funding from the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida)
This article was originally published in 101 Reporters under Creative Common license. Read the original article.
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