Kothamalli Samba is our favourite red rice variety that we have been consistently cultivating at Vaanavil every year for the last 3. It is named after Coriander because of the size and shape of the grain.
We first got seeds from Pothigai Uzhathi seed bank managed by paddy seed saver Lakshmi Devi of Ambasamudram.
When the first couple of heavy showers from the north east monsoon hit us, that is when we prepare the nursery.
The women of Agasthiyarpuram do a splendid and fast job of transplanting from the nursery to our fields.
Before this activity, compost made with cow dung, chicken waste and a lot of organic material from leaf litter, crop waste and bio char is applied to the rice fields. The soil is healthy and teeming with life even before transplantation has happened.
Weeding is also another laborious activity that generates local rural employment. Both of these activities are being increasingly mechanised.
Does increasing mechanisation drive urbanisation? Is it the other way around? Or do they feed each other?
Friends and family often join us for the harvest. And they are rewarded with cuts and bruises in their arms if they are not adequately dressed with a fill hand shirts. Dinesh and Sanmugasundaram are the ones threshing in the pedal operated paddy thresher from Kolkata.
The semi polished Kothamalli samba milled in the rubber mills here have paddy in the final output of rice. So manually removing the paddy from the rice is essential before packing. This jacks up the price often more than the cost of organically cultivating rice.
