Thrissur farmland which conserves 570 rice varieties including those from Thailand earns PM Modi's praise

A farmland in Thrissur, where 570 different varieties of organic paddy are grown on a 3.5-acre plot, has found mention in the latest edition of Prime Minister's Mann Ki Baat programme. The vast stretch of land under Sarvathobhadram Organics has focused not just on cultivation but on conservation of different seed varieties for the past six years.

The land is sorted into blocks and marked with placards. There are at least 570 such blocks for each variety of paddy that the society grows, lined up neatly along one another, spread across the vast acreage.

The society, founded in 2020, is one of four initiatives by the Sree Avanangattil Kalari Sree Vishnumaya Temple, and it primarily functions to meet the temple's grain needs. However, to promote grain diversification, it also distributes grains at no cost to farmers seeking specific rice varieties. In return, the farmers must give them a share of the produce. "This system exists just to ensure that the seeds are put to use," says Lincy KD, who is in charge of the Sarvathobhadram Organics Society.

The society, led by Adv A V Raghuraman Panicker, Adv A V Hrishikesh Panicker and Rahul Panicker, began cultivation with vegetable seeds distributed by the Rishaba Yagam seed distribution programme at the Krishi Unnati Mela fair in 2020. They were quick to implement the initiative's core value of converting fallow lands into productive fields. The society soon leased out a 10-acre plot that had been abandoned for 15 years and turned it into a horticultural wonderland. It later shifted to Jyothi rice cultivation on 42 acres of land.

Of the 570 varieties being cultivated at present, 166 are from Kerala itself, and most of the remaining varieties are from other Indian states. Moreover, it also produces three varieties from Thailand and Myanmar. The society also cultivates Tulsi Bhog rice, a variety with the smallest grain size, says Lincy. "We have varieties from almost all the states of the country," she adds.

The endeavour to source such a wide variety of rice is not as cumbersome as one might expect. In fact, it is backed by an organised move to preserve rice varieties that have been slowly vanishing from the nation.

The project receives seeds from Leneesh K, a Wayanad-based agriculturist who cultivates various rice varieties for preservation. Leneesh, a part of the "save the rice campaign" that began in 2004, sources the grains through his connections in the programme, which is spread across the country.

For organisations affiliated to temples, cultivation is primarily to meet the temples' needs, says Leneesh.

"Special preparations of the 'prasad' are to be done with specific varieties of rice which have slowly vanished from our daily lives. So they try to preserve these varieties, which often have medicinal benefits too," says Leneesh.

Lincy remembers how the varieties of rice, which have now become unfamiliar even to the natives, were once commonly sown in the state. Of the 166 varieties that uniquely belong to the state, most have been almost entirely wiped out from mainstream cultivation and society.