Millets: Ancient Grains, Global Policies, Local Lifeworlds - Preliminary conclusions (6/6)
| Date: | 21 December 2024 |
| Author: | Peter Berger, René Cappers, Sonja Filatova, Roland Hardenberg, Ashutosh Kumar and Nidhi Trivedi |
After intensive ethnographic and archaeobotanical research as part of our research project, we can identify some trends in the cereal crops of Odisha, India. First of all, it is clear that the new policies of the state, implemented by various governmental and non-governmental institutions, are having multiple impacts on the forms of production, processing, transaction and consumption of grains. New technologies, such as grain milling machines, significantly reduce the amount of labor required for processing and allow women to take on other tasks and work part-time or even full-time outside the house, for example as teachers. Another example are newly introduced agricultural practices such as planting finger millet in rows, a technique that significantly increases harvest yields and makes these cereals more profitable for farmers. On the other hand, there is a growing concern that monocropping, i.e. the tendency to grow mainly finger millet, may lead to a reduction in crop diversity and sometimes to a deterioration in soil quality.
These policies have also changed the image of cereals. Millets are now praised as a ‘superfood’, ‘nutri-grain’ or ‘honorable food’ (Shri Anna). On the other hand, the original cultivators of these millets in the highlands of Odisha have not experienced a similar ‘upgrading’ of their image and status. They are still often considered ‘backward’, ‘underdeveloped’ or ‘ignorant’ by lowlanders and urban dwellers. In recent years, however, these negative stereotypes have been countered by the efforts of some NGOs and activists, whose members praise Adivasi farmers as ‘custodians’ of the seeds. This in turn is echoed by governmental and non-governmental organizations in their policy papers.
All this shows that the earlier dividing lines between Adivasi farmers on the one hand and government officials, policy makers and educated elites on the other are sometimes blurred. While in many cases there is a lack of interest and even ignorance on the part of government officials towards local food production and consumption practices, there are also opportunities for dialogue between the local population, interest groups, activists and officials. Thus, some Adivasi farmers are getting involved in NGOs, certain NGO activists are becoming farmers or civil servants, and some scientists who have studied Adivasi grain crops are joining grain movements or are employed in agrarian state institutions.
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About the author
Peter Berger is Associate Professor of Indian Religions and the Anthropology of Religion at the Faculty of Religion, Culture and Society, University of Groningen. Since 1996 his ethnographic research is focused on the Indigenous peoples (Adivasis) of highland Odisha, India, and he has worked on the topics of religion, ritual, food, values, cultural change and agriculture.
René Cappers was a professor of Archaeobotany at the Rijksuniversiteit Groningen and the Leiden University, until his retirement in 2024. He is specialized in plant ecology and archaeobotany and has been involved in research dealing in archaeobotanical methodology and modeling of (early) agriculture and crop choice in various geographical regions. His most recent research deals with ethnobotanical investigations of plant cultivation, processing, and consumption, amongst others in India, and has been published in great detail in the Digital Plant Atlas series.
Sonja Filatova is a postdoctoral researcher in the NWO project "Salvage crops, "savage" people: a comparative anthropological and archaeobotanical investigation of millet assemblages in India". She is specialized in the analysis of macroscopic plant remains from archaeological contexts with the aim to reconstruct ancient plant-human interactions, in particular foodways related to crops. Since 2022, her research includes ethnobotanical investigations into the crop choices of farmers in the highlands of Odisha, whereby she integrates contemporary insights about highland crop assemblages with the archaeobotanical record.
Roland Hardenberg is Professor of Social and Cultural Anthropology at the Faculty of History and Philosophy, Goethe University Frankfurt and director of the Frobenius Institute for Research in Cultural Anthropology. Since 1994 his ethnographic research has focused on coastal and highland Odisha (India) as well as Kyrgyzstan, Iran and Spain. He has worked on the topics of religion, values, social organization, resources, agriculture and mining.
Ashutosh Kumar is a PhD researcher in the NWO project "Salvage crops, "savage" people: a comparative anthropological and archaeobotanical investigation of millet assemblages in India" at the Faculty of Religion, Culture and Society, University of Groningen. Since 2022, he has been working with the Didayi Adivasi community of Odisha (India), to document and understand the local cereal culture. This study aims to understand the role that various cereals like millets play in constituting the Didayi lifeworld in context of the recent promotion of millets through promotion at national and international levels.
Nidhi Trivedi is a PhD researcher in the NWO project "Salvage crops, “savage” people: a comparative anthropological and archaeobotanical investigation of Millet Assemblages in India". Since 2022, her ethnographic research focuses on the Parenga Poraja Adivasi community of Odisha, India. The aim is to understand how cereals such as rice and millet are embedded in the total lifeworlds of the community as well as how they relate and respond to the changing valuations of cereal crops in the current socioeconomic and cultural environment.