Back to the Future With Local Rice Seeds
Charitha Wijeratne (right) at his organic rice farm in Anuradhapura
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By coaxing a bumper 3.2 tonnes of rice out of each acre on his organic
farm in this district famed for its ancient Buddhist monasteries,
Charitha Wijeratne has convincingly proved that using indigenous seeds
does not affect productivity.
“After three years of struggle, this
harvest season, we reaped 120 bushels (3.2 tonnes) per acre against the
average 80 bushels (2.1 tonnes) per acre yield,” Wijeratne, a sprightly
octogenarian and diehard Marxist, tells IPS.
Teaming up with Alex Thanthriarachchi, 62, a reformed militant
Marxist, Wijertane is on a mission to promote indigenous varieties of
rice and other staples as the best way for Sri Lankan farmers to deal
with changing climate.
Thanthriarachchi, currently secretary to senior minister S.B.
Navinna, was jailed for his role in the failed 1971 Marxist uprising in
Sri Lanka. He spent his two years in prison studying neighbouring
India’s hybrid-based ‘green revolution’ that resulted in the extinction
of thousands of local varieties.
Thanthriarachchi and Wijeratne scoured the countryside for years
looking for traditional rice breeds known to be resistant to droughts
and floods and requiring minimum farming inputs.
“This is organic farming at its best,” says Wijeratne, pointing to
his rice-growing land in the Eppawela and Thrippane villages where he
and his associates debunked the myth that indigenous rice produces lower
yields than hybrids.
Wijeratne’s 10-hectare farm at Thrippane is lush with
organically-grown coconuts, fruits and vegetables and attracts other
farmers in Anuradhapura as well as academics and green activists.
Indeed, Anuradhapura district, whose Buddhist monuments have earned
it recognition as a UNESCO heritage site, is now also emerging as a
centre for indigenous seed revival.
Ajantha Kumari Ratnamala, 34, is among a group of farmers dedicated
to training others who wish to use indigenous seeds. She has converted
her own 2.1- acre paddy field in Anuradhapura into a showpiece for
traditional seed varieties.
“Each acre gives me 80 bushels and although hybrids do give about 100
bushels, there are financial, health and environmental costs that are
too often ignored in production reckonings,” she tells IPS.
“Pesticides and insecticides needed for cultivating hybrids are not
only costly but also have persistent toxic compounds that seep into the
earth and contaminate the water table,” Ratnamala says. “Organic farming
uses cowdungh, a natural fertiliser that also discourages pests.”
As soil health improves after two to three years of regular organic
farming, so do yields. Organic rice also fetches better price at Sri
Lankan rupees 60 (45 cents) per kg against 22 – 30 cents per kg for
hybrid rice,” Ratnamala said.
Farmers in Anuradhapura, she said, are increasingly seeing the
advantages of returning to hardy traditional varieties that are
weather-resilient.
Nimal Wijeratne, 52, from Padaviya village, told IPS that of the
450-odd rice farmers in his area a third have switched to indigenous
seeds, defying government efforts to encourage the use of hybrids.
In 2006, the government requested the Food and Agricultural
Organisation (of the United Nations) for assistance in strengthening
national capacity in hybrid rice development as a means to boost food
security and alleviate poverty.
Rice, cultivated in Sri Lanka since 1,000 B.C., is the country’s
single most important crop, taking up 34 percent of the total cultivated
area.
Some 900,000 hectares are under rice, cultivated by about 1.8 million
farming families. Sri Lanka currently produces 2.7 million tonnes of
rough rice annually, satisfying around 95 percent of the domestic
requirement, according to the department of agriculture.
Rice growers are heavily dependent on timely, optimum rainfall for
good harvests, but established crop cycles have been disrupted by
changes in rainfall patterns, rising temperatures, floods and droughts.
“The biggest problems for rice growers are floods, droughts and
unpredictable weather conditions,” says Prof. Champa Nawaratna, senior
scientist at the agriculture department of the University of Ruhunu.
Nawaratna said the weather has been getting more unpredictable over
the past five years. “This year the rains came in February-March, but we
are not sure about next year,” she said, recalling the floods two years
ago which destroyed 50 percent of the crops.
“Based on existing research conducted at the University of Ruhunu we
can say that 50 percent of crops over a five-year period are likely to
get damaged by floods, though even this data is unreliable with weather
patterns changing so rapidly,” she said.
Nawaratna said colleagues in her department have also tested
indigenous paddy varieties and found them to be more resistant to the
vagaries of the weather.
Independent studies conducted by the Farmer Federation for the
Conservation of Traditional Seeds and Agri-Resources, a major
non-government organisation based in Homagama, outside Colombo,
corroborate the university’s findings.
Waruna Madawanarachchi, director of CIC Seeds Pvt. Ltd, the largest
single local manufacturer of hybrids in Sri Lanka, testifies to the fact
that there is demand for traditional rice breeds and that his company
actually outsources popular varieties like ‘Suwadel’ and ‘Kaluheenati’.
Kaluheenati, a dark red grain, is highly nutritious and traditionally
recommended for nursing mothers while Suwadel is a white and fragrant
variety.
“Farmers are producing their own hybrid seed which represents 80
percent of the demand while the balance 20 percent comes from the
formal, organised sector,” Madawanarachchi said. “However, once in four
years, farmers need to come back to us to buy new hybrid seeds from
companies like ours.”
According to Madawanarachchi, hybrid rice varieties are well
established in Sri Lanka and account for 99 percent of the total market
for rice seeds, estimated at 4.5 million bushels (122,468 tonnes)
annually.
But the bumper crops of fine, organically-grown indigenous rice
reaped by Wijeratne and Thanthriarachchi in Anuradhapura show which way
the wind is now beginning to blow.
Among those impressed by the achievement of the duo in producing
climate-resilient organic rice is R.W.K. Punchihewa, a senior lecturer
in agriculture biology at the University of Ruhunu, who also runs his
own two-acre organic farm at Padukka in the western region.
“For 24 years I worked at the department of agriculture and felt we
were going the wrong way in pushing a policy based on imported
rice-farming inputs,” Punchihewa told IPS.
“Pesticides and chemical fertilisers have killed the fish in the
hybrid-growing rice fields and ruined biodiversity in one the world’s
best ecosystems,” Punchihewa said. “Worse, farmers (growing hybrids) are
eternally in debt because of the high cost of inputs
“We need to revive traditional practices if agriculture is to be sustainable in Sri Lanka.”
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