Crops of truth

Chandramma is not alone in her determination to bring back 'dignity' to crops that have been relegated to 'inferior grains'. In all, some 5,000 women from 75 villages are staking a claim to create an 'agrobiodiversity' heritage site. 'If I have control over my seeds,' she says, 'I control my food and my family's nutrition.' Preserve your own seeds; grow nothing you can't eat. 'Without seeds,' she says, 'a farm is like a house without light.' On her four hectares of land, which she bought piece by piece for 20 years, she grows about 80 different crops. She says new generations are willingly embracing ageold wisdom. Wisdom, she says, is never obsolete. It is eternal. 'Search my kitchen, you can't find one crop that I don't grow,' she says. 'If you can tell me one crop that I do not grow,' she chuckles with a twinkle, 'I will do whatever you say.'