Ikki Jathre

Why in News?

• Kerala-based organisation, Thanal has recently launched the Ikki Jathre or the Festival of Rice in tribal parlance whereby 300 climate-resilient varieties of traditional rice were planted at Panavally, Wayanad.

Highlights

• The initiative aims to sensitise people to the significance of conserving traditional crops that have the ability to withstand harsh climatic conditions.
• The festival also sets the stage for knowledge sharing and co-creation of knowledge between tribal farmers and experts.
• For the RDB, most of the varieties were collected from Kerala, Karnataka, Assam, Tamil Nadu, Arunachal Pradesh, Maharashtra and West Bengal.
• Also, there are three traditional rice varieties from Vietnam and Thailand.
• Thanal initiated the Rice Diversity Block (RDB) at Panavally under the Save Our Rice campaign in 2009, with a collection of 30 varieties of rice which now expanded to 300
• Establishing community RDBs and seed banks, conserving and promoting indigenous varieties of paddy seeds.
• Creating awareness about value of rice diversity among urban consumers.
• Facilitating adoption of agro-ecological farming in rice ecosystems, and encouraging farmers, states and local governments to adopt indigenous seeds.
• Enabling active discussions in the media about indigenous seeds and agro ecological farming.