“Joey, I got you a gift. It’s dried mahua flowers, an antioxidant superfood and, most importantly, a natural sweetener.” I looked at the bag my friend in Hyderabad gave me. At Rs.240, it costs roughly 48x times as much as the equivalent weight of sugar. After researching how to use them, I boiled some in tea, took a sip, and did not like the taste.
A week later, I returned to Koraput District, Odisha, my project fieldsite. I attended training sessions on pre-monsoon dry sowing (PMDS), a soil fertility technique that involves growing 10-15 different cover crops two months before kharif crop sowing. This natural farming technique not only reduces input costs for farmers by replacing costly chemical fertilizers, but it also increases soil health and resiliency. Chemical farming synthetically incorporates nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium and other important plant nutrients; while these inputs can dramatically increase yields in the short-run, long-term dependency comes at the expense of soil health. Chemical fertilizers do not feed the soil ecosystem including beneficial soil organisms that provide other ecosystem services to the farm. As a result, the soil structure collapses by neglecting the importance of roots, fungi, microbes, and organic matter which are vital for soil aeration, porosity, and nutrient cycles. Even worse, many synthetic fertilizers are salts where excessive application can contribute to salinity and increase crop water stress, particularly in water-scarce regions. PMDS solves for all of these issues: building up soil health, allowing for natural nutrient generation, and, simply, does not involve salt.
During the training session, the conversation shifted towards the nearby forests. Many rural villages in India rely on forests for non-timber forest products (NTFP) including food, building materials, medicines, fibers, craft materials, oils, fragrances, etc. Usually, I patiently wait during these conversations as they are conducted in Odia. This time, however, my ears perked up: the conversation kept repeating a certain word I knew: mahua.
The state of the forests in rural Odisha are in crisis. Increasingly erratic rainfall and rising temperatures are placing severe stress on local forest ecosystems. As drought periods increase, trees, especially young saplings, die. As more trees die, the remaining trees are exposed to increasing sun exposure worsened by the increased heat, creating a feedback loop. Mahua trees appear particularly vulnerable to changing rainfall patterns. Mahua flowering is adapted to a distinct summer dry season that allows flowers to mature for collection. However, as intense and sporadic rainfall is now more common in these areas, premature flowers are knocked off and pollinators stay away. As a result, mahua flower production has drastically reduced.
The state of the food system in India is at an inflection point. Rural communities who once relied on free forest products for traditional goods are now facing new, burdening costs by purchasing outside processed sugar. On the flip side, urbanites are seeking healthier alternatives, willing to pay a hefty price for an increasingly scarce flower. The agrifood value chain demands critical reflection. As climate change reshapes production and markets, who captures the value of increasingly scarce resources, and who loses access to traditional foods? What can we do to build a more equitable system?
