Sundargarh (Odisha), Latehar (Jharkhand): Deep inside the lush sal forest in Odisha’s Sundargarh, Albisia Lakda, an Adivasi farmer living in Subdega block had divided the rice crop on her two-acre plot of farmland in two sections. With the monsoon fluctuating widely last year, parts of Odisha experienced long dry spells and crop failures.

Now, in the plot she called the berna (low-lying land), which collects the most rain, Lakda continued to plant ‘Annapurna’, a modern hybrid variety of rice, which she referred as sarkaari dhaan (government rice). In the guda (upland), she had gone back to growing the crops of her ancestors – indigenous, or heirloom rice varieties called Kalamaliphool, Bahalguda, Lusri and Luhini.