Jyoti Patale
In Jamkundiya village, Inda Jamuda and Seeta, Community Resource Persons (Eastern India), led a meeting focused on planning for this year’s agricultural season and distributing seeds for kitchen nutritional gardens in the community backyards. The session began with a review of the previous year’s efforts, where Inda had distributed various traditional seed varieties to the farmers. The community members shared that they still have seeds from last year’s crops, including okra, bottle gourd, and a traditional variety of maize, and they discussed their experiences and challenges from the past year.
A key topic was the process of seed recovery for the Community Seed Bank in Churgi village, which was established the previous year. The farmers explained their methods for saving and storing seeds, emphasizing the importance of maintaining the seed bank to ensure seed availability for future planting seasons.
During the meeting, the community members also discussed the importance of seed exchange. Inda distributed seeds of bottle gourd, okra, ridged gourd, maize, and pumpkin to the families. The farmers showed interest in participating in the seed bank initiative, contributing seeds from their harvests, and utilizing the seed bank’s resources for their current season’s cultivation needs.
In addition to crop cultivation, the community discussed ongoing problems posed by wild animals and birds, which affected both their agriculture and kitchen gardens. They mentioned that Pearl millet was completely destroyed by birds, and they did not get any yield. For pigeon pea, there were no seeds. To protect their maize from Parrots, they wrapped the grown maize with its leaves.
