Promoting locally-grown foods

Like the name, India, it was with some surprise that I learnt that the common south Indian fruit, tamarind, has a Persian etymology. The Persians gave the fruit the melodious name of Tamar-i-hind or the “date of India”, which was subsequently Anglicized to tamarind.

It was even more of a surprise to learn that the tamarind tree (Tamarindus Indica), a leguminous tree in the family Fabaceae, despite its deceptive name, originates from Africa. A tropical evergreen, it has been cultivated in India for so long that most consider it to be indigenous to India. Before the onslaught of globalization that gave us modern highways – those blazing rivers of monochrome asphalt criss-crossing the country – our cities were linked by a single-lane avenue, often lined on both sides by tamarind trees, which were dutifully branded and numbered by the government. Tamarind trees were specifically chosen for their huge canopy so that they would provide shade as bullock-carts ferried the trade to the cities. In recent years, hundreds of really old tamarind trees have been felled in Tamil Nadu to widen highways, for yet faster and faster traffic.

Yes, a slow peaceful way of life has yielded to the restless frenzy of our modern life. So it was with some amusement that I watched my mother, who was visiting me earlier this summer, spend hours under the tamarind tree near my house, gathering the fallen fruit. Thinking I could monetize the fruit of her labour (mind you, a single tree can produce 175 kgs of fruit per year), I checked with Foodlink if they would buy my tamarind harvest, but it turned out that their stores are still stocked from last year’s harvest (cleaned, de-seeded, and dried tamarind can be stored for months).

I then checked out Auroville’s stores and food-processing units as to why our tamarind stock was not moving. And it turned out that the price of Auroville tamarind, like our grains, is higher than that of outside suppliers. Auroville produce, especially those that need cleaning and processing, such as grains and tamarind, have a higher price-tag for farmers pay fair wages to hired labour. In other parts of India, prices of agricultural produce can be low due to lack of labour costs: for either, as with my mum, the extended family helps out in the daily tasks of the farm, or as the latest study by Global Slavery Index states, there is still widespread labour below acceptable wage-levels in the country. I was also told that even though Auroville tamarind is processed under clean, hygienic conditions, the packaging is not as fancy as the tamarind packs imported from outside, and so is not popular among consumers.

And here lies the nub of the matter: I fear that our dysfunctional economy pivots around our inability to close supply chains locally. By monetizing everything, such as counting the contribution of a commercial unit solely in terms of rupees donated, we fail to appreciate local labour and stimulate local employment. Having part of our monthly maintenance (which anyway most deem to be insufficient) in kind is merely a band-aid solution to the deeper problem of how we can have goods, especially local produce, circulate within our community. This problem cannot be tackled by Foodlink alone: It requires a wider community discussion and envisioning of a different economy – one that is closer to our ideals. Otherwise, as with so many other areas of Auroville, we are merely giving lip-service to our ideals, while succumbing to the pull of market forces in our lives.

I do not have answers, but I know we have a problem. And as always, when perturbed, I do some honest manual labour to calm down. So I set about pulping the tamarind that my mum had been cleaning and made a delicious jam out of it, using brown sugar and a dash of cinnamon, for tamarind is a surprisingly nutritious fruit packed with high doses of vitamin C, iron, and calcium. It also contains other essential minerals, phytochemicals and antioxidants that help prevent diseases, such as cancer, digestive disorders and high cholesterol. Specifically, the tartaric acid that gives tamarind its sour taste helps in improving glucose tolerance and lowering overall glucose levels. It also improves intestinal absorption, dramatically increasing the rate at which nutrients are absorbed into the bloodstream from consumed foods. These are only some of the reasons why a tamarind pod a day would keep the doctor away!

Foodlink, meanwhile, is investing in fancier and costlier packaging for its organic tamarind as well as encouraging farmers to process the fruit into jams and chutneys. For even though tamarind is a prized condiment in south Indian cooking, many are not used to its sharp, sour taste and more likely to buy tamarind jams and chutneys than the fruit itself.

V for Varagu

Having forked out a significant portion of my maintenance for a simple breakfast at Bread & Chocolate, Auroville’s latest up-market eatery, I did not dare to go back there for lunch despite rave reviews about their Saigon Bowl, which has quinoa as its base.

But why quinoa? What’s wrong with good old varagu? Varagu, samai, tinnai – all those delicious, nutritious, drought-resistant, locally-grown grains, now face the danger of being up-staged by quinoa, a pseudo-grain, traditionally grown in the Andes. Once upon a time, millets reigned supreme in India: in the 1950s, 40% of the cultivated grains comprised millets. However, since the Green Revolution, with state policies supporting the production, distribution, and consumption of rice and wheat with large-scale subsidies, the share of millets in total grain production had dropped from 40% to a meagre 20% at present.

Millet faming can be totally eco-friendly: traditional millet cultivation does not require any irrigation facilities or inputs, such as chemicals and fertilizers. Best of all, most millets can grow in arid conditions in relatively poor soil and better withstand changes in the weather. With the threat of climate change and the need for food-security looming large over the nation, environmental activists in India have been pressuring the government to give incentives to farmers for millet cultivation and distribution. Activists would like to see that millets are included, along with rice and wheat, in the government subsidized mid-day meal scheme, and public distribution (ration) scheme.

As processing millets can be labour-intensive, in Karnataka, thanks to the efforts of Pipal Tree, a non-profit organization, the government has included “millet cleaning” as an acceptable job in its National Rural Employment Guarantee scheme where every indigent person in rural areas has the right to 100 days of employment a year. This means that the government pays the wages, but the labourer works for the millet farmer.

Such efforts, however, are now further threatened by the entry of quinoa into the Indian market. While quinoa has been imported in small quantities for over a decade now, what is new in the past couple of years is an aggressive marketing campaign to promote it. As with soy, activists suspect involvement of multi-national food corporations in the massive publicity campaign associated with quinoa. As of yet, quinoa cultivation and consumption in India is at a nascent stage, but there is reason to be concerned that the hype over quinoa will adversely affect the cultivation of millets. While not as water-intensive as rice, quinoa cultivation in India requires irrigation, unlike millet cultivation. The nutritional profile of quinoa and the different varieties of millets are very similar (quinoa’s protein profile is actually better than that of millets, but amaranth, another pseudo-grain, locally grown, belongs to the same goosefoot family as quinoa and has the same protein profile). But eating millets is not just good for your body, it is good for the body of the earth.

As I confessed, I haven’t yet tried the Saigon Bowl of quinoa. I am sure it is tasty, but as of yet, the most-delicious dish that I ever had in Auroville was varagu puliyodharai – the winning entry in a food competition held a few years ago on Earth-Day in Auroville. Varagu puliyodharai is basically your south-Indian tamarind rice, with the rice substituted by varagu. And that’s another victory for varagu over quinoa. Varagu is tastier and quite easily substituted for rice. Quinoa is bland in taste and can even be bitter if not prepared properly.

In my activist zeal to promote the cultivation of millets in the bio-region, I too wanted to succumb to the seductive pull of the market and sell locally-grown millets outside of Auroville. As with all market-driven arguments, I believed that by finding new markets and creating demand, I’d boost the supply, that is foster cultivation of millets. But Tomas of Annapurna, who currently processes all the grains grown in Auroville, wisely counseled that the role of the Auroville farmers is to first secure the needs of the community, and not to cater to outside market forces.

Nevertheless, this year, on an experimental basis and with the support of the new management team at the online store of Auroville, surplus produce of locally-grown Auroville red rice and varagu are currently available from auroville.com.