How Women Farmers in the Sundarban Are Reviving Indigenous Rice Varieties

In a region hit hard by climate change, where salinity of agricultural land has become a major concern, indigenous rice varieties could bring some respite – provided farmers have the right support.

Sundarban (West Bengal): When Barnali Dhara, 50, stepped into her husband's chemical fertiliser shop in Nischintapur, a locality in the Indian Sundarban, she was only trying to help her husband, who had got a job as a school teacher.

A store that sells chemical fertilisers – in Sundarban and elsewhere – is often a place where farmers meet and decide, at times together, which seed and which fertiliser to buy. In the Indian Sundarban, located in West Bengal, paddy is the main crop. Women work as much in the fields as men, if not more, but the decision of whether to buy hybrid, high-yielding paddy seeds and chemical fertilisers rests with the men.

Dhara knew that when she began to manage the shop in 2005. "I came from a Sundarban family of farmers, who were also teachers," she says. She had passed the higher secondary (Class 12) board examination.

What she did not know was that after 12 years in the shop, her life would take a sharp turn.

"The men complained bitterly," says Dhara. Nischintapur is located in Kulpi administrative block in West Bengal, not far from the Bay of Bengal. The farmers complained that the chemical fertilisers were reducing the fertility of the soil, and so the next season more fertilisers would have to be bought. In Sundarban, this adds to the precarity of a farmer's situation.

The delta region that lies along the Bay of Bengal in India and Bangladesh is one of the most climate change-vulnerable places in the world. It experiences a sea level rise rate of about 8 mm per year, the world average being about 3.1 mm per year. In addition, cyclones, which are linked to climate change, have become almost annual events here.

May is a dreaded month. Cyclone Amphan had struck in May 2020, Cyclone Yaas in May 2021 and Cyclone Remal in May 2024. Cyclone Fani had hit Sundarban in April-end, 2019, and Cyclone Bulbul in November 2019. The saline water that floods in with cyclones and from sea level rise lead to salinity in the soil. This can render agricultural land uncultivable for years.

After Cyclone Aila in May 2009, which devastated the entire region, agriculture had stopped for four to five years in some places. "In Nischintapur, five years after Cyclone Amphan, someone's land is still saline," says Dhara.

But what stops growing in saline soil is the modern, scientifically developed hybrid variety of paddy that require chemical fertilisers. What survives is the indigenous or traditional paddy of Sundarban, a fact that was becoming increasingly clear after Cyclone Aila.