| Vasant Kore’s memory of his grandfather is inextricably tied to the family’s farmland. “Whenever I miss him, I look at the kar jondhala (indigenous sorghum), which my family has been cultivating for over four generations,” he told OZY. From the age of 17, the first crop Kore learned to cultivate was kar jondhala. Today, the 75-year-old belongs to the last generation of farmers growing this highly nutritious traditional grain in drought-prone Dongarsoni village, in Maharashtra’s Sangli district. Or so he thought. India is one of the world’s major food producers and consumers. As climate change affects crop output and disrupts agriculture in the country, Kore and other older farmers are working to revive interest in climate-resilient indigenous sorghum among the younger generations. It’s a crop that has seen them through extreme weather crises in the past. It could, they believe, hold the key to both farming income and food security in the future. “Kar jondhala requires a bare minimum of water. So even if it rains a handful of times, it’s enough to help the crop grow,” Kore says. Once a staple food, India produced 4.2 million metric tons of sorghum last year, an almost 40% decline since 2010. Changing eating habits, improved access to water in parts of the country and a shift to non-native species like soybeans and cash crops like sugarcane have played a part. “As water facilities started reaching drought-affected villages, farmers shifted to cultivating grapes because it helps earn a lot,” Kore says. Others turned to hybrid varieties of sorghum, which, Kore says, yield twice as much as the indigenous version — in half the time. However, the hybrid variety is also less resistant to climate-induced events like drought, heat waves and untimely rains. “This year, there was tremendous rainfall in several villages of Sangli district. As a result, the shalu (hybrid variety) didn’t survive in many places,” Kore says. What was left behind was kar jondala. “This crop is a farmer’s delight. If you sow it once, you don’t have to look at it,” he says. Kore and his peers aren’t just learning about traditional sorghum’s resilience now — they’ve survived because of it for decades. In 1972, soon after the hybrid varieties were first introduced in Maharashtra — which produces nearly half of India’s sorghum — the state suffered a crippling drought. It’s widely remembered as one of the most catastrophic events in the state’s modern history, with at least 70,000 excess deaths recorded that year. “During the 1972 drought, we survived on kar jondhala,” Kore says. “The hybrid variety didn’t survive the drought.” Kar jondhala is mainly used to make bhakri, a sweet-tasting flatbread that remains a staple food in Maharashtra’s drought-affected villages. Interestingly, the crop has a special significance in the lives of protesting farmers. “During any protest, we go to Mumbai, and most of these protests can last for a week or 15 days,” says Kore. Bhakri, which farmers carry with them to such protests, lasts that long. “Once this flatbread is sun-dried, nothing happens to it for 15 days, and the taste remains good. This bhakri has kept us independent and alive,” says Kore. | 