In Odisha, an Adivasi community is using traditional farming to fight climate change

Nestled in the remote forested hills of Odisha’s Malkangiri district, Bondaghati is home to the Bonda tribe, one of the 13 particularly vulnerable tribal groups in the state. Some 12,321 Bonda people lived in 32 hilltop villages, as per the 2011 Census. Malkangiri is among the 100 most underdeveloped and poverty-stricken districts of India.

The Bonda people belong to the Austro-Asiatic ethnic group and are believed to be a part of the first wave of migration out of Africa, 60,000 years ago. Their lives are interwoven with the forest land they inhabit, for generations the tribe has sustained itself by cultivating traditional crops, collecting minor forest produce and brewing indigenous liquor.

But in the past few years, climate change has irrevocably affected their subsistence living. Heavy rainfall (table below) washes away the fertile topsoil from the slopes. The advent of modern ways of agriculture has influenced their traditional farming practices – from millet-centred mixed cropping systems, the Bonda farmers have gradually shifted to paddy, which has affected the availability of their staple food.

Bonda women, however, are addressing these issues by reverting to the cultivation of native millet varieties – finger (ragi), foxtail (kakum or kangni), barnyard (sanwa), proso (chena) and pearl (bajra) millets – which are climate-resilient and ensure the community’s food and nutritional security.

The awareness created…

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