In 2019, a group of 20 farmers in the Alluri Sitharama Raju district of Andhra Pradesh decided to start producing seeds of finger millet (ragi) and little millet (samai). They had no idea what the future would bring.
During the subsequent two years, unusual weather conditions prevented the crops from producing grains that were suitable for use as seeds.
“The months of July and August in the years 2020 and 2021 saw more rain. Because of this, the plants were unable to obtain nutrients from the soil. The resultant grains were frail and the endosperm — part of a seed that stores nourishment for the improvement of a plant and is essential for germination — was missing when the seeds were squashed open for examination," says M L Sanyasi Rao, program supervisor of Watershed Backing Administrations and Exercises Organization, a non-benefit working with ancestral ranchers nearby.
The harvest in November 2021 yielded only 15 tonnes of produce, with the grains being unusable as seeds, despite the farmers' estimates of 20 tonnes. The harvest was then sold as a crop for Rs 25 per kilogram, whereas it would have cost R35 per kilogram to sell it as seed.
The process by which seeds are produced or crops are grown does not differ. Greater part of ranchers in India put away a piece of their field for developing seeds that can be utilized the following season.
Seeds, on the other hand, which are necessary for the nation's food security, have been put in jeopardy by climate change. Farmers assert that the supply of grains of wheat and rice, two staples that are distributed under the government's public distribution system and essential to food security, has also decreased in recent years.
Light or weak grains typically make up 5-7 percent. However, this past year, more than 20% of my wheat grains were of subpar quality. These can't be used as seeds, according to Vikas Choudhary, a farmer from Haryana's Karnal district.
Under the seed production program of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), Choudhary is employed as a participatory farmer by the Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI).