Mentorship in Developing Micro Enterpreneur of Rengginang Business in Babakan Mulya Village, Kuningan City, West Java

Besides working as a farmer, Mrs. Sutinah has run a business selling rengginang (a form of traditional rice cakes, popular as snacks and crisps as a side dish for main meals) since 2012. Mrs. Sutinah can be said to be the pioneer in the rengginang business around her village, Babakan Mulya, in the city of Kuningan, West Java. Nevertheless, in recent years, Mrs. Sutinah has been facing some challenges due to the emergence of competitors who offer a lower price than that of Mrs. Sutinah’s rengginang. This condition demotivates Mrs. Sutinah from developing her business because many people in the Babakan Mulya village prefer cheap rengginang, regardless of its quality. The purpose of this activity is to help develop Mrs. Sutinah’s rengginang business through three stages: pre-business mentoring, businessmentoring, and post-business mentoring. In the first stage of pre-mentorship, the community service team conducted interviews and field observations to identify the problems faced by Mrs. Sutinah’s business. The second stage involves direct mentorship given to Mrs. Sutinah, who can learn by directly implementing the concepts taught by the team to increase the competitive advantage of her products. In the final stage of post-mentorship, the team monitors and evaluates the success of the business and the actual implementation of the lessons given to Mrs. Sutinah. The pre-mentorship was conducted in one week, followed by the mentor’s accompaniment completed in four weeks. Meanwhile, monitoring and evaluation of Mrs. Sutinah’s engagement and implementation of the gained knowledge and skills were conducted periodically in the next four months after the mentorship ended. The outcomes revealed that the development and sustainability of micro entrepreneur need intensive mentorship, particularly by involving academia to ensure that the knowledge and skill transfer would be effective and consistently implement what they have learned

The legacy of traditional rice cultivation by descendants of Indian contract laborers in Suriname

Background Some 35,000 indentured laborers from India were recruited to work on plantations in Suriname between 1868 and 1916. It is likely that most were familiar with farming before they were shipped to this former Dutch colony in the Caribbean. Around 1900, those who did not return received a piece of land where most of them started growing rice as a staple crop. Agronomists characterized their traditional landraces as inferior and infested with weedy rice and started to ‘purify’ these landraces. No research has been done on whether these ancient rice varieties still exist. We aimed to document the rice varieties (both landraces and more modern cultivars) grown currently or in the recent past by (descendants of) Hindustani smallholders in Suriname, their origin, morphological and agronomic characters, local uses and cultural and spiritual relevance. Given the rapid decline in small-scale rice cultivation in the past 40 years, we wanted to know why people continued or abandoned rice farming and what aspects of traditional practices still survived. Methods We interviewed 26 (former) small-scale Hindustani farmers and asked about the varieties they cultivated and traditional agricultural practices. We collected seed samples, local names and associated information, and compared these to information from agricultural reports from the colonial period. We also interviewed 11 Maroons, one Javanese farmer, and three persons of mixed ethnicity, who were somehow involved in the cultivation of East Indian rice varieties. Results and discussion Hindustani smallholders in Suriname largely lost their traditional rice landraces. Most of the interviewed farmers grew modern cultivars, developed after 2000. Some cultivars from the 1950s were still planted for fodder, but these were heavily mixed with weedy rice and other weeds. Maroon farmers in the interior, however, still actively cultivated varieties with names like ‘coolie rice’, which probably descend from landraces introduced by the Indian contract laborers, although this needs to be confirmed by molecular research. Although traditional cultivation practices seem to have been lost, smallholders still retain pleasant memories of the manual planting, harvesting, and processing of rice, as well as the gender-based practices and beliefs associated with the cultivation of the crop. The oral history of former rice farmers and traditional rice varieties (possibly obtained from Maroon fields) could play a role in museum settings as living vehicles for memories of the descendants of Asian contract labourers in Suriname and Guyana.

Elucidating Traditional Rice Varieties for Consilient Biotic and Abiotic Stress Management under Changing Climate with Landscape-Level Rice Biodiversity

Rice is grown under diverse agro-climatic conditions and crop management regimes across the globe. Emerging climatic-vulnerabilities and the mismatched farm practices are becoming major challenges for poor or declining rice productivity in potential rice growing regions, especially South Asia. In the biodiversity-rich landscapes of South Asia, many traditional rice varieties (TRVs) are known to exhibit resilience to climate change and climate adaptation besides their therapeutic benefits. Hence, a random sample survey of farmers (n=320), alongwith secondary data collection from non-governmental organizations/farmers’ organizations/farmers, led to documentation of the information on TRVs’ biodiversity in South Asia. The current study (2015-2019) explored and documented ~164 TRVs which may enhance the resilience to climatic-risks with improved yields besides their unique therapeutic benefits. A large number of TRVs have still not been registered by scientific organizations due to poor awareness by the farmers and community organizations. Hence, it is urgently needed to document, evaluate and harness the desired traits of these TRVs for ecological, economic, nutritional and health benefits. This study suggests taking greater cognizance of TRVs for their conservation, need-based crop improvement, and cultivation in the niche-areas owing to their importance in climate-resilient agriculture for overall sustainable rice farming in South Asia so as to achieve the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.

Risk Behavior of Farmers Cultivating Traditional Rice Varieties in Erode District, Tamil Nadu

This study investigates the risk behavior of traditional rice variety growers in Erode District of Tamil Nadu state, using Moscardi and De Janvry approach and Discriminant analysis technique. A well structured questioner was prepared and purposive random sampling was done in three blocks which covers highest cultivable area under paddy namely Gobichettipalayam, Modakurichi and Bhavani in Erode district. Each traditional rice varieties have some unique characteristics i.e some are pest and disease resistant, drought resistant, resistant to waterlogged condition and have medicinal values. The present study was done to identify the major risks, to quantify the risk attitude and to identify the factors influencing risk attitude of the traditional variety growers in Erode District. In the research it was found that the varieties preferred by farmers were Thuyamalli, Kichadi samba, Karuppukavuni, Mapillai samba,Arcaud Kichadi Samba, Poongar, Thanga Samba, Sivan Samba and few other varieties they were cultivating in small areas using organic farming method.The major risk found in cultivating traditional rice varieties were market risk followed by human labour risk, processing risk, input risk, technology risk, institutional risk, natural risk and other risks include transport risk and storage risk. The farmers were grouped into three categories i.e., risk preferrers (63.33 per cent), risk neutral (28.33 per cent) and risk averse (8.33 per cent) based on risk attitude. Once again the farmers in each group was categorized into low, medium, high risk based on nine factors namely, farmers age, major occupation, years of schooling, family size, membership in any of the farmers association, proportion of paddy area to total farm area, proportion of paddy income to total farm income, experience and adequacy of market which were influencing the risk attitude of farmers. In order to conserve the traditional rice varieties from extinction, to restore the soil health, to ensure nutritional security the farmers were willing to take risk.

Genetic Structure and Geographical Differentiation of Traditional Rice (Oryza sativa L.) from Northern Vietnam

Northern Vietnam is one of the most important centers of genetic diversity for cultivated rice. Over thousands of years of cultivation, natural and artificial selection has preserved many traditional rice landraces in northern Vietnam due to its geographic situation, climatic conditions, and many ethnic groups. These local landraces serve as a rich source of genetic variation—an important resource for future crop improvement. In this study, we determined the genetic diversity and population structure of 79 rice landraces collected from northern Vietnam and 19 rice accessions collected from different countries. In total, 98 rice accessions could be differentiated into japonica and indica with moderate genetic diversity and a polymorphism information content of 0.382. Moreover, we found that genetic differentiation was related to geographical regions with an overall PhiPT (analog of fixation index FST) value of 0.130. We also detected subspecies-specific markers to classify rice (Oryza sativa L.) into indica and japonica. Additionally, we detected five marker-trait associations and rare alleles that can be applied in future breeding programs. Our results suggest that rice landraces in northern Vietnam have a dynamic genetic system that can create different levels of genetic differentiation among regions, but also maintain a balanced genetic diversity between regions.

Physical and nutrient characterization of the grains from traditional rice varieties of Kerala and validation of the trait linked molecular markers

Kerala is rich with traditional rice varieties that could grow in various agro- climatic conditions of the state. However many of these traditional varieties are not cultivated and have become extinct due to low yield, promotion of high breed variety seeds and high-cost in continuing the cultivation with traditional seeds. The lack of knowledge about the nutraceutical values of traditional rice varieties among farmers leads to the non-participation in cultivation. Present study was aimed at to characterization of thirty traditional rice varieties in terms of physico-chemical, cooking quality as well as molecular screening with markers specific to quality traits. All the varieties used is unique in their quality parameters, among them Njavara Veluthath (13.57%) and Orumundakan (13.35%) were rich in protein content whereas, Karimbalan (311.54 mg/Kg and 102.41 mg/kg) and Veliyan (218.25 mg/Kg and 56.88mg/kg) were superior in Iron and Zinc content. The carotene content ranged from 0.14 mg/100g (Mullan kayama) to 0.56 mg/100g (Njavara veluthath) and amylose content was maximum in Cheruviripp (29.52%). Thus, these varieties need to be conserved and promote them by commercialize and through general public awareness about their medicinal benefits. Correlation analysis showed positive significant relationship between Iron and Zinc content, while amylose content had positive correlation with volume expansion and optimum cooking quality. The SSR marker RM535 linked to Quantitative Trait Loci for Iron and Zinc content was detected in thirteen varieties, RM190 linked with Wx gene locus associated with amylose content in seventeen varieties and the marker RM520 linked to QTL for protein content was detected in all the varieties.

Variation in agronomic characters among traditional rice varieties of Cooch Behar, West Bengal: A Case Study

The expertise of agro-morphological variability within a crop and its dispersion across agro-ecological areas may be very useful in managing the crop’s germplasm and developing improved methods. Crop failure is guarded against through genetic variety. However, dwindling genetic wealth erodes the capacity to maintain and enhance agricultural productivity. West Bengal has rich rice genetic wealth. But this genetic wealth is being silently depleted due to the onslaught of the high-yielding varieties (HYVs) and neglect The 10 traditional rice varieties were collected from the Cooch Behar district of West Bengal, India. The present study aimed to characterize the rice genotypes using agronomic characters. The assessment was done following the Standard Evaluation System (SES) for rice developed by the International Rice Research Institute. Even though all the ten local rice varieties were adapted to the Cooch Behar district, a fair amount of diversity was found among the rice genotypes.