By Bharat Dogra
Jayesh Joshi, founder and coordinator of Vaagdhara voluntary organization, has been in the news recently as co-organizer of a national dialogue on self-reliance of rural communities and a series of village fairs to strengthen tribal communities’ efforts for beej swaraj or self-reliance in seeds. These efforts acquire a special significance at a time of increasing worldwide concern regarding the concentration of the seed industry in the hands of a few giant multinational companies. What should be done in such a difficult situation to increase seed self-reliance or beej swaraj of rural and particularly tribal communities? What have been the efforts of Vaagdhara in this direction? In this interview with Bharat Dogra, Jayesh Joshi answers these and related questions.
Q—There has been an increasing emphasis on policies of self-reliance in recent months or weeks in India and some other developing countries. How important is your campaign for beej swaraj in this context?
A—I think beej swaraj is of very high importance in this as well as wider contexts. In India and several other countries, when we seek self-reliance, then given not just the structure of economy and livelihoods or demographic factors but in addition cultural factors as well, the self-reliance of rural areas or Gram Swaraj is very important. This was emphasized a lot in the freedom movement and in the thinking of Mahatma Gandhi this is seen as the basis of regeneration of villages. What is important is to emphasize that despite all the years that have passed this thinking remains very important, and in fact there are new sources and new reasons for relevance as in the context of climate change. Now in this wider context of gram swaraj, I think that beej swaraj and seeds sovereignty are clearly of very high importance as beej is the essence and the starting point of life, of farming and food. So if you are badly dependent in matters relating to seeds you can not really have gram swaraj.
Q—Nevertheless, the fact remains that in India as well as in several other countries farmers have been becoming more and more dependent in matters relating to seeds. How do you hope to change this situation?
A—We work with tribal communities in Central India in three states where Vaagdhara’s initiatives have been welcomed and supported by people as they feel that these respond very well to their real needs. A helpful factor is that beej swaraj has been very much a part of their livelihoods, their farming and their culture in the past. However due to a number of complex factors including exploitation of tribal communities in colonial times, their well-established systems were disrupted. Later there was a very different pursuit of development which ignored the strengths of tribal community systems and tried to impose new and alien systems including seed-dependence which were disruptive for the communities and their way of life. The new generation struggled to find ways of protecting community strengths as the more influential elites insisted that they have to give up their ‘backward systems’ for new ‘development’. So villagers were confused and in this confused state and amidst alienating influences it was difficult to protect their existing strengths.
In this situation when Vaagdhara started its work we were very sure of at least one thing that we are not going to impose anything on people, and so we approached them with a spirit of understanding and learning. This helped us to understand that in the midst of various constraints and problems they faced, the communities had evolved methods and systems which were very suitable and made a lot of sense in those conditions. One important aspect was to carefully save the seeds of many diverse varieties of crops. However these and other strengths were already in decline. So what we have tried to do is to revive the strengths of communities, give people confidence and support in this and then suggest improvements where needed which take this forward without being disruptive in any way.
Q—What exactly is your approach to beej swaraj?
A—Our approach is that this should be taken forward in a more holistic way along with many other important aspects which strengthen the communities and their farming system and its sustainability. Hence seed self- reliance is a part, a very important and in fact essential part, of strengthening communities, making the community and its farming system more self-reliant, with mobilization of groups of women and men at village and cluster levels being supportive towards each other. In this system there is encouragement for revival of traditional strengths of saving seeds, helped by traditional skills and also new understanding such as that brought by increasing interactions facilitated by Vaagdhara. For instance, the research and documentation work which has listed nearly 100 types of traditional foods including uncultivated ones, the mixed farming systems and rotations associated with them, the various varieties and their characteristics, the nutritional analysis of various crops have been helpful. A very important role has been played by the seeds fairs or melas being organized every year, more recently as many as about 90 at the same time before the planting season so that more people have a chance to know more about what variety of seeds are available with whom and they have better chances of sharing and exchange of seeds. All this people really like and are happy to be involved with as, apart from its practical and economic uses, this has been a part of their culture which was unfortunately disrupted and now it is nice to be part of its revival.
Another wider context is that of promoting natural farming which is best achieved on the basis of the traditional diverse seeds of these communities.
Q-How do you see all this to be helpful in times of climate change?
A—When communities are strengthened and their resilience is strengthened, when they have more self-reliance then their capacity to cope with climate change in the form of adverse and erratic weather also increases. This also happens when their recurring input costs decrease.
Hence climate adaptation improves. In addition climate mitigation is helped when the burden of fossil fuels reduces significantly. In traditional farming of the tribal communities we work with there was no burden of fossil fuels. This burden came only when outside influences changed the prevailing system. With the promotion of natural farming based on diversity of indigenous seeds, again we can realize the farming system which has very little of any burden of fossil fuels, and the soil conservation natural farming promotes is also useful in this context.
Q-How can we take forward beej swaraj?
A—Surely this is not a question of economics only, this is even more integrated with culture and with a way of life, and so should be taken forward in a more holistic way. Again this is not a question of any one organization or any single community. This is a much bigger issue at a national level and world level as our basic thinking about seeds needs to be changed in the direction of regarding seeds as the heritage of humanity to be shared, and never to be used as an instrument of maximizing profits or control over others.
Bharat Dogra is Honorary Convener, Campaign to Save Earth Now.
24 September 2025
Source: countercurrents.org