Kerala man conserves 650 rice varieties in 25-cent plot

KASARAGOD: As an 18-year-old boy, he fell in love with the tiny grains of Rajakayame rice. He used to glean the paddy field and the pathway on which reapers carried the harvested paddy bundles. Today, Sathyanarayana Beleri is a one-man paddy gene bank conserving 650 traditional rice varieties.

He has varieties from Japan and the Philippines and from far-flung states of Assam and Manipur and neighbouring states of Karnataka and Tamil Nadu; he has paddies that grow as tall as 13 feet; he has rice varieties which are black, purple, white, red, and light green; he has varieties which give good yield in saline soil, and also in the water-scarce field.

On November 11, Union Minister for Agriculture Narendra Singh Tomar honoured him with the ‘Plant Genome Saviour Farmer Reward’ in Delhi for his efforts in conserving traditional varieties of rice. Sathyanarayana — whose income comes from rubber, nutmeg and arecanut — said he grows all the 650 varieties of rice in a 25-cent artificially created paddy field because his land is not conducive for paddy cultivation. “Of the 25 cents, I grow one variety in 10 cents just for the birds and the rats,” says Sathyanarayana, a resident of Nettenige village in Belloor panchayat of Kasaragod.

The rest of the varieties he breeds in grow-bags and protects them with nets. He has developed his own methods to conserve the different landraces of rice. “I use paper cups and grow-bags,” for best results.
He sows around 20 seeds in a paper cup with a potting mixture. After 10 days, he shifts seedlings to the grow-bags. Once the paddy blooms, he shifts the grow-bags to a 30-metre-square plot where he has laid tarpaulin. “The tarpaulin helps me save water and ensure there is optimum moisture in the grow-bags,” he said. He repeats these steps for all the 650 varieties of rice every year.

The technique impressed the National Gene Bank in Delhi that it gave Sathyanarayana 30 varieties of rice to conserve. The Kerala Agricultural University in Thrissur and the University of Agricultural and Horticultural Sciences in Shivamogga have used paddy varieties from him in their breeding programmes.