dailyO
Life/Style

What a visit to Kolkata taught me about chemical-free agriculture

Advertisement
Sourish Bhattacharyya
Sourish BhattacharyyaDec 15, 2016 | 15:18

What a visit to Kolkata taught me about chemical-free agriculture

I have just returned from Kolkata after spending two days at The Market Place, or Bish Mukto Haat (which when translated from Bangla means ‘Poison Free Market’), which brought together traditional famers who had returned to age-old organic agricultural practices.

Having seen chemicals ruin their land, these farmers are going back to tradition. They are reviving disappearing grains, such as the short-grained rice variety Tulai Panji, which is a favourite of resident Pranab Mukherjee.

Advertisement

Chefs visiting The Market Place were struck by how similar Tulai Panji was to the Italian arborio rice, which is the basic ingredient of a risotto. From picturesque Mirik in Darjeeling came farmers producing exotic items such as deliciously sweet-and-tart kiwi fruit, juicy mandarins, plump and earthy shiitake mushroom, and the feta-like Siri cheese made from the milk of a little-known family of short-statured cows of Bhutanese origin.

Sambit Banik, the management- professor-turned-chef, owner of Kolkata's Spicekraft restaurant, used Tulai Panji, Siri cheese and juice of the mandarins to make the fried rice balls called arancini, a Sicilian speciality. And Abhijit Saha, Bengaluru's celebrity chef who's famous for his Caperberry (Modern European) restaurant and now for Saha (Modern Indian) in Singapore, prepared a risotto with West Bengal's best known short-grained rice, the fragrant Gobindo Bhog, accompanied by Mirik shiitake and Bengal greens cooked in the aglio-olio style.

food-_121516125712.jpg
Deliciously sweet-and-tart kiwi fruit. [Photo: Mail Today]
food-2_121516125726.jpg
The feta-like Siri cheese made from the milk of short-statured cows of Bhutanese origin from Mirik, Darjeeling. [Photo: Mail Today]
food-3_121516125742.jpg
Plump and earthy shiitake mushroom. [Photo: Mail Today]

Our traditional farmers are repositories of ancient wisdom that has helped our agriculture remain sustainable over the centuries.

A West Bengal government official in the state agriculture department shared his experience of visiting Santhal villages in the Jungle Mahal districts that still don't have electricity, but where women are the most ardent upholders of earth friendly agricultural practices. These have become fashionable all over again all over the world, thanks to the Slow Food movement and its offshoot, Terra Madre.

Advertisement

The Santhal women of Jungle Mahal, with whom the official and I spoke with had to conduct a meeting using car lights because it was pitch dark, use cow dung and vegetable waste to produce natural manure, and use cow's urine as well as neem leaves as pesticides. These are time-tested, fail-safe methods, and even farmers in Punjab are returning to traditional techniques in the plots they reserve for family use.

As a farmer proudly informed me, on my last visit to a village in rural Bhatinda - “The food you're eating is chemical free. Notice the difference in taste?”

The words of the farmer in Punjab came back to me when I sat through a presentation made by Saha, who pointed out that as many as 15 pesticides are used to protect grapes, or that, whereas edible wax is used all over to make apples shine, in India, apple growers use a cheap variant that is harmful to our health. Initiatives such as The Market Place can achieve little till the farmers find a market for their niche produce.

Achintya Anand, a 23-year-old chef-turned-gentleman-farmer, for instance, couldn't have pursued his passion had 40 restaurants in Delhi-NCR not bought his micro-greens and ‘exotic’ vegetables. On a larger scale, First Agro launched a zero-pesticide, non-GMO revolution from Karnataka's Mysore district and found a responsive market for its vegetables. It is this market that has given the company confidence to start acquiring 1,100 acres of land in 16 locations across the country.

Advertisement

Saha has started working on a national network of stakeholders in the food business to sustain organic farmers. Closer home, Chef Manjit Gill of ITC Hotels has brought the global movement to promote the agricultural practices and produce of indigenous people, Terra Madre, to India. Such networks alone can transform good intentions into sustainable practices.

(Courtesy: Mail Today)

Last updated: December 15, 2016 | 15:18
IN THIS STORY
Please log in
I agree with DailyO's privacy policy