The Seed
Natabar Sarangi’s mission is to find, save and share his indigenous rice seed with local farmers.
Filmmaker: Jason Taylor
Sixty years ago India had more than 100,000 varieties of rice. Today there are little more than 3,000. The demise of seed variety is just one of the many issues farmers around the world are fighting against.
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Agriculture has become agribusiness and more than one billion farmers’ livelihoods and environments are now being threatened worldwide.
But Natabar Sarangi fights for the survival of a sustainable agriculture system with the knowledge of over 10,000 years. He continues to find, save and share his indigenous rice seed with local farmers. To date he has managed to re-introduce over 350 varieties.
He is just one of a growing number of farmers throughout the world who realise that if we do not begin to repair the damage taking place to our agricultural systems and our environment, we will lose not just our cultural identity but our fundamental right to a truly sustainable system of food security.
The Seed aired from Saturday, January 22, at 2055GMT.
Published On 23 Jan 2011