Seed Sovereignty


 Do you know how people defy the monopoly that international seed giants seek to set up? Here is a story from northern Karnataka

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 Seed Sovereignty
After a sumptuous Havyaka Oota – a traditional Malnad lunch, we thank Manorama for the healthy fare cooked from the ingredients that are all fresh out of her home garden, and settle down in the living room for a chat over chai. Manorama and Sunita reminisce about the days when the latter started Vanastree with a group of women in Neernalli village, six kilometres from main-town Sirsi. “I met Sunita through my husband who had helped her with some electrical work, and got interested in Vanastree,” recalls Manorama. “In the initial days, our local postman Seshadri helped us by hand-delivering our newsletters to women in the villages around Sirsi. Seshadri was very good at heart and multi-talented too – he doubled up as cook and purohit, acting as the situation called for it. Through his able efforts, we had a group of women soon enough. That was in the year 2002. Earlier, in the year 2001, I had suggested to Sunita that we start a Mela. We went on to start with a biodiversity Mela for the National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan. By the year 2008, we replicated the Malnad Mela in Bangalore and ran it for ten years until 2017. We have now decided to continue the Mela here in Sirsi, and sell the seeds and produce via Vanya. We registered Vanastree formally in 2008, and now reach out to women in approximately 40 villages situated within a 40 kilometre radius around Sirsi. Our endeavour is to teach people to save seeds towards Seed Sovereignty.”

The women of Malnad wield the ladle and their forest gardens with equal ease, in an endeavour to spread seed sovereignty.
 
Vanya seeds
Back home in Bangalore, I watch the pots in my terrace garden everyday – I have brought back seeds from Vanya, and hope that these energies of sustainable agriculture from Malnad’s backyards will grow and spread far and wide.
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