A grassroots movement spanning six Indian states has helped revive more than 1,000 traditional rice varieties that were on the verge of disappearing. Coordinated through the Save Our Rice Campaign (SOR) and its partner organisations, the effort involves roughly 30,000 farmers who conserve, multiply, and share seeds through community-managed Rice Diversity Blocks and panchayat-level seed banks.
The campaign traces its Indian roots to the early 2000s, when agriculture officer Usha Soolapani, influenced by Masanobu Fukuoka's "One-Straw Revolution," began documenting the loss of paddy ecosystems in Kerala. Her work with Thanal, a Kerala-based environmental group, expanded after witnessing the health impacts of aerial Endosulfan spraying on cashew plantations in Kasaragod district, which the Supreme Court later addressed with a compensation order for over 5,000 victims in 2017.
Between 2005 and 2018, Thanal teams travelled across Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, West Bengal, Chhattisgarh, and other rice-growing regions to locate farmers still safeguarding ancestral seeds. They found varieties preserved by just one or two households, stored in clay pots or kitchen rafters. Seed festivals became venues for exchanging both grains and the cultural knowledge attached to them.
The campaign established Rice Diversity Blocks where traditional varieties are grown out annually rather than kept in cold storage. Farmers manage these plots and the associated seed banks, keeping control of genetic resources within communities. Varieties such as Mappilai Samba from Tamil Nadu, Mullaan Kazhama and Raktha Sali from Kerala, and Rajamudi from Karnataka are now being cultivated again across multiple farms.
Kerala's paddy area has declined from roughly 7.6–8 lakh hectares in the post-Independence decades to about 1.8 lakh hectares in 2023–24, according to state data, due to rising costs, labour shortages, and real estate pressure. The 2008 Kerala Conservation of Paddy Land and Wetland Act aimed to curb conversion, though exceptions for infrastructure projects have continued to be sought.
Climate resilience has become a growing focus. Farmers in the Sundarbans have conserved around 192 folk varieties, many adapted to salinity and flooding. The campaign's approach emphasises farmer-led adaptation over top-down technology transfer, with women playing central roles in seed selection, storage, and the transition to chemical-free cultivation.
Youth engagement strategies include rice festivals, food fairs, fellowships, and collaborations with food vloggers and nutritionists to connect traditional varieties to contemporary kitchens. Unusual conservation spaces have emerged, such as farmer Syed Ghani Khan's Rice Diversity Centre in Karnataka's Mandya district, housing over 1,300 varieties, and heritage rice displays at the Aluva State Seed Farm in Kerala and the Kaziranga National Orchid and Biodiversity Park in Assam.
Usha Soolapani, trained as a horticulturist, continues to work on agroecology strategies and serves on the steering committee of ASHA (Alliance for Sustainable and Holistic Agriculture). The campaign's anthology, "Paddy Through the Years," documents the collected knowledge. Organisers stress that resilience must be built with farmers as partners, not beneficiaries of external expertise.
Inspired by Japanese Farming, She Built a 30,000-Farmer Movement to Save 1,000 Forgotten Rice Varieties
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