Surja Paharia
The Paharia people of Sundar Pahari have historically carried out the traditional mixed cropping practice of Kurwa in their hills. Kurwa has traditionally involved the cultivation of a rich diversity of crops that included Maize, Sorghum, a variety of millets, pulses and vegetables. However, with increased market dependence of late Paharia farmers mostly focus on a handful of crops namely Gangi (Maize), Tialo (Sorghum), Kakro (rice bean) and Ture (Pigeon pea). Several subsistence crops like millets and vegetables that made a vital contribution to the health and nutritional security of the Paharia, have largely disappeared from Kurwa fields.
In order to strengthen the practice of Kurwa and promote the revival of crop diversity that made invaluable contributions to the health and nutritional needs of the Paharia people, the Using Diversity project has been encouraging Kurwa farmers to cultivate a variety of different crops by distributing traditional seeds through community seed banks. In 2021 several different local seeds were distributed to 128 farmers across 20 villages for cultivation in their Kurwa plots. The seeds distributed included Kodme (Finger millet), Muto (Pearl Millet), Petge (Foxtail millet), Batwa (Little Millet), Garari (Job’s tear), Ture (Pigeon pea), Karela (Bitter Gourd), Kohada (Pumpkin) and Jhinga (Ridge gourd). While climatic challenges like erratic rainfall posed some problems for the farmers on the whole they reaped a good harvest this year with a majority of the seeds distributed doing well.
We visited the Kurwa fields of Dharmendra Paharia from Bada Palma village and Jamuna Paharia from Balami village.
While traditionally a variety of vegetables were also cultivated alongside cereals and pulses in Kurwa plots this practice has been on the decline. However, it was good to see a variety of vegetables like Kohada (pumpkin), Jhinga (Ridge gourd) and Palonge (cucumber) growing well in both Dharmendra and Jamun’s Kurwa plots. They reported that this year a majority of farmers have been cultivating vegetables like pumpkin and cucumber in their Kurwa and these crops have been doing well. Of the millets distributed Petge (foxtail millet) has done particularly well with most farmers reporting a good harvest.
