How organic farming and seed breeding can promote food and seed sovereignty
What motivated you to apply for the ambassador grant?
In 2015, Amadeus Zschanke, CEO of Sativa Seeds, gave a lecture on organic seeds breeding as part of the WFSC Summer School. In followup discussions whith him and Mr. Friedmann, a seed breeder at Sativa, they inspired me to come again to Switzerland to learn more about seed breeding. They provided to me a lot of contacts and information. Then, in 2016, I received an email from the WFSC, after I returned back home from the summer school. This email encouraged me to apply for an WFSC ambassadors grant which would allow me to go to Sativa to learn from them about organic seed breeding. In Assam, there are no organic seeds you can buy. But this is the basic foundation for organic farming! To fill this gap I wanted to start my own seed breeding activities at Pabhoi Greens, my farm in Assam, India. Therefore, I applied for my first ambassador grant, not only to go to Sativa in Switzerland but also to Fertile Ground in Vancouver, Canada. Fertile Ground is another seed cooperative movement from Canada that works in Assam. The movement is initiated by a very nice and inspiring lady, Peggy Carswell, who cooperates very closely with me on my farm. I wanted to visit them and get a better understanding of their approach. Unfortunately, my visa application for Canada was rejected. This is why I was able to travel with the first ambassador grant twice to Europe, once for 47 days in 2016, and whith some extra money from my own, a second time in 2017. However, this was also only possible due to the very generous support of Sativa. I was able to stay for free at Sativa in Rheinau. Even lunch was included. I only needed to cover breakfast and dinner.
In 2019, I applied for a second grant to continue learning at Sativa and also for trying again to go to Canada. However, as Canada rejected my visa application again I had to adapt my travel plans. Instead, I went to Austria, the Netherlands and Germany, and prolonged my stay in Switzerland.
What were the main activities you undertook during your ambassador grant?
When I went to San Leonard in Austria, I visited a company called Reinsaat. There, I met Ms. Reinhild, the owner of Reinsaat, who told me how she started the company and gave me some seed breeding lessons as well as some lessons in management skills, how to run a company. They are the largest seed producer in Austria, which was quite impressive. I stayed there for 6 days and it was amazing. I learned about different varieties of chillies and tomatoes, and about their business model which is very similar to mine. Ms. Reinhild is leading her company, while other companies connected to Reinsaat are organized in trusts and are, therefore, independant. Next to having their own company, they also do farming. The most powerful learning was about they add value to their products: they use paprika and tomatos to make antipasti and sugo.
The next place I went to was Wagenignen University in the Netherlands where I stayed for 4 days, inter alia to meet professor Steven Groot. He works with seeds in tropical climates so I wanted to learn from him more about tropical seed drying and storing. My greatest constraint at my farm is that I cannot store the seeds I produce. We lack storage facilities. This is a big challenge for me. However, we not only talked about seed storage, Prof. Groot could also teach me about different fungal diseases and how to deal with those. We have a lot of problems with bacteria in tomatoes as we grow outdoors, unlike in Europe, where tomatos mostly grown indoors. After the session with Prof. Groot, I visited a bio-dynamic farm in the Netherlands as well. The farmer, René Groenen, is also a bio-dynamic seed breeder. I learned from him that farmers are breeders – amazing! I always thought a breeder can only be a professor or a scientist, at least someone who studied breeding.
Our harvest during a breeders workshop in Munich, another station on my journey through the European seed scene.
In Euope, there are three large organic seed production companies. The largest, Bingenheimer Saatgut AG, is in Bingenheim where I went for two days for learning about seed marketing and participating in a cauliflower breeding worshop. They work with 70 farmers, who work for them all across Europe. Also here, farmers are breeders! For me, a very inspiring business model and approach I want also to establish in Assam. Furthermore, I got to know the organization Kultursaat, a network among organic farmers, seed breeders and the Bingenheimer Saatgut AG, that is supporting its members projects financially but also in terms of knowledge exchange and sharing experiences. This inspired me a lot to estastblish a similar network here in Assam. Hence, they gave me not only a lot of seeds but also many inspiring ideas for the future.
Can you share the story of Pabhoi Greens with me?
My farm, Pabhoi Greens, is located in the state of Assam, a state between the Himalayas and the Brahmaputra river in North-East India. I inherited my family’s farm in 2001 and since then, I dedicate my life to farming. The farm area is about 12ha and around 40 people work on the farm. I believe in organic farming that takes care of our environment and is the only way how we can face climate change which I can observe every day on the farm. Hence, I turned the conventional farm into an organic agricultural site in 2003. But we do not only care about the environment, we also care about the people living and working on the farm. Most of the workers have been working on the farm for many years. Hence, Pabhoi Greens supports for example the educational expenses of the farm workers’ children, comes up for any health costs, and builds up the capacity and skills of local students and interns in organic farming.
Finally, we are engaged in four main fields at Pabhoi Greens:
Fishery. We farm 8-10 varieties of fish in a total of 34 ponds (including large and small) on the farm. We also breed the fish. Many Assamese traditional recipes include fish.
Organic farming. This includes different activities such as dairy farming, compost production, paddy field cultivation, plant nursery, bio-pesticides production, apiculture, vegetables cultivation, fruit production, and mushroom cultivation.
Preservation of organic seed varieties. We built up the first organic seed bank in North-East India with the philosophy of preserving seeds as a public good and necessary precondition for food sovereignty. Therefore, we are already conserving more than 100 indigenous rice varieties along with around 250 different indigenous vegetable varieties at Pabhoi Greens.
Farmer training. I promote organic farming by sharing best practices and offering training to NGO’s, local farmers, students from regional agricultural universities, and other communities in North-East India. Two successful community-projects I collaborate with are located in Khonoma (Nagaland) and Thembang (Arunachal Pradesh) where women are taking the lead in maintaining organic agriculture in their communities.
Field work on René Groenen’s bio-dynamic farm in the Netherlands.
How have the summer school and the ambassador grants you applied for supported you to develop Pahoi Greens?
In particular the time at Sativa, but also the many interactions with the different seed breeders and specialists have had a huge impact! I became a more professional farmer and I started to produce my own seeds. Even other farmers are now doing seed propagation and breeding trials on our behalf. Thanks to the ambassador grants I had the chance to learn so much from inspiring people. Thereby, I did not only get some theoretical input but also practical experience. The breeders at Sativa are helping me in such a way that I progress fast in seed breeding. If I had to start from scratch, on my own it would have probably taken me 20 years to get to the same point I am today, having the breeding success I have now! They helped me both in improving my technical breeding skills and knowledge, but also my farm management skills. I have learned more about finances and business models, as well as working etiquette and farm organisation. At Sativa the farmers come usually at 6.45am if they have to start at 7am. In India it is not like that. This impressed, inspired and motivated me to work in a more organized manner introducing a new work schedule at the farm. Furthermore, I am now focusing on long-term sustainability, working with a 5-year strategic plan. Therein, I decide what we will do at Pabhoi Greens and what not. Organic farming it is not only about seeds, it is also about bio-fertilizers and bio-pesticides. These technologies are not there now and I want to help farmers to implement them. I also decided to reduce the organic seed production, focusing more on helping the farmers to learn more about seed production themselves. I will just do the trials and the research, providing the best adapted seeds to the farmers. In summary, I have five fields in organic farming. I want to teach the farmers in: seed production, vegetable production, rice production, post-harvest technologies and fishery. However, for seed and post-harvest storage and teaching the farmers how to do so, I need proper drying facilities. I will also have to decide which vegetables to focus for seed breeding research and seed production. We cannot do everything I have learned. In India, due to poverty the farmers are not only unable to afford expensive agricultural input, they are also dependant on big companies for their seeds. Hence, I want to create a sustainable alternative, showing that organic farming cannot only feed the people, but also produce healthy and affordable food without harming the environment. I want to slowly raise awareness about how important organic farming and seed breeding is for food and seed sovereignty.
Additional info:
- Video about Pabhoi Greens filmed by Green Hub
- Presentation given at summer school Rheinau, 2019
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Neelam Dutta is an organic farmer, trainer, social worker, wildlife activist and entrepreneur. He is an alumnus of the World Food System Summer School 2015 in Rheinau and the owner of the agricultural multipurpose project Pabhoi Greens that stands out as an example of an efficient integrated set-up. Neelam received different awards, as for example in 2014 the India’s best Organic Haladhar Farmer Award.