HANDS OF TRANSITION
How Food Producers in the Mountains Navigate Unseasonal Rains
From harvesting honey to growing indigenous vegetables, unpredictable rainfall severely impacts the food we eat. In the face of such varying weather patterns, farmers and producers, including The Locavore’s partners, often have to contend with challenges such as landslides, logistical hurdles, and even changes in local diets.
YASHVI SHAH | 17 DECEMBER 2025
INTRODUCTION
The monsoon season in India typically lasts from June to September, and when not erratic, it supports over 50 percent of the country’s farmland. In 2025, wetter, more precarious rainfall, caught several regions across the country off-guard. According to experts and news reports, India experienced almost double or 85.7 percent more rainfall than usual in the month of May. Prolonged wet spells were accompanied by thunderstorms, lightning, gusty winds, and dust storms over parts of northwest, central, and eastern India. These unseasonal patterns also led to massive crop losses in states such as Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, Telangana, and Gujarat.
Fluctuating weather conditions often give rise to landslides, flash floods, and biodiversity loss which become particularly difficult to navigate in steep, hilly regions. We gather perspectives from Last Forest, Hill Wild, Himalayan Haat, and Tenacious Bee Collective—four of The Locavore’s producer partners based in mountainous regions in India—to understand some of these challenges, and how they deal with them.
This is an audio-visual adaptation of a previously published feature on The Locavore. Read the original story here.
Last Forest
Kotagiri, Tamil Nadu
Based in the Nilgiris, Last Forest is a social enterprise supporting traditional livelihoods—including honey hunting and millet farming—among Indigenous communities like the Kurumbas, Irulas, Todas, and Badagas in the region. These communities work under the umbrella of Aadhimalai, a collective of tribal producers from the Nilgiri Biosphere Reserve.
“The climate is not what it used to be even a few years ago, the changes are quite drastic now,” says Madhu Ravishankar, Communications Lead at Last Forest. “It’s a challenge which people are adapting to, but it’s still a big shift in what we have been used to doing.”
In an interview with The Locavore, Madhu talks about the hurdles posed by erratic rainfall in the Nilgiris, and how sustainable farmers are mitigating them.
Listen here:
Last Forest supports forest-based livelihoods for Indigenous communities in the Nilgiris. Rock bees in the region typically migrate to lower altitudes, below 1,950 metres, during the monsoon, which is why it is crucial for honey hunters to harvest honey before the rain arrives.
Source: State GIS Portal
Click to explore the Nilgiri Biosphere Reserve (NBR). NBR was the first biosphere reserve to be established in India, noted for its incredible biodiversity. It covers an area of 5500 square kilometres, and encompasses gradients in climate, including rainfall, temperature, and elevation, giving rise to diverse flora and fauna.
Source: Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund (CEPF), CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
Traditionally, the Toda community farmed, while the Kurumbas and Irulas—the honey gatherers—grew millets between April and January, when honey was not to be found. Now, the climate crisis has altered the seasons. All photos by Last Forest.
Last Forest and Aadhimalai regularly organise field meetings among farmers where they share knowledge and discuss how they can mitigate impacts of the climate crisis.
In regions across the Nilgiri Biosphere, such as Aracode, Last Forest, along with Aadhimalai, supports smallholder farmers who have been growing millets, including foxtail and kodo for generations.
Last Forest moved their storage facilities to Annur in Coimbatore, where it is easier to monitor and maintain the water content in honey, because of heavy rains.
Ramaswami climbs up the hives of the giant rock bee, or Apis dorsata. The ladder is woven with vines of the ‘biscoot kodi’, a creeper native to the Nilgiri forests near the Kurumba village.
Honey collection in the Nilgiris is entirely seasonal, with the first phase from April till around June, and the second from around October until mid-January.
Hill Wild
Ukhrul, Manipur
Founded in 2017 by Zeinorin Angkang and Leiyolan Vashum, Hill Wild exclusively sources indigenous produce from across seven villages in Manipur and Nagaland: Sirarakhong, Chingjaroi, Ningthi, Tusom, Tamenglong, Chahong, and Tuensang. These villages are part of the Indo-Burma Biodiversity Hotspot, and each have a unique micro-climate.
For instance, Ukhrul, where Hill Wild is based, is only 80 kilometres away from the state capital Imphal, but experiences an entirely different climate—misty, rainy, and sunny with ample forest cover—which helps in the cultivation of unique produce. This includes plums that are both sweet and tart, the pleasantly acidic Kachai lemon, and the searing hot Sirarakhong chilli.
Zeinorin spoke to The Locavore about unpredictable weather patterns in the region, and how locals are delaying the planting of fruit trees as well as relying more on foraging for native produce.
Listen here:
Hill Wild exclusively sources indigenous produce from across seven villages in the Indo-Burma Biodiversity Hotspot, encompassing elevations ranging from 500 to 2,157 metres.
Source: State GIS Portal
(Left): Click to explore the district-wise projected increase in annual rainfall (in percentages), for the period between June and September, as compared to a baseline of 1975.
(Right) Click to explore the district-wise projected increase in surface annual temperature in Manipur, for the period 2021-2050 as compared to a baseline of 1975.
Source: Manipur State Action Plan on Climate Change (2013), Directorate of Environment.
Note: These projections are made based on the Special Report on Emissions Scenarios (SRES) shared by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The A1B scenario, used for these maps, assumes a future world of successful economic development, low population growth, and the rapid introduction of new and more efficient technologies. Without these interventions, the changes could be more drastic.
Talui garlic farmer Nganunglei, Zeinorin, and her friend (from left to right) celebrate Women’s Day in Talui village in Manipur’s Ukhrul district. All photos by Hill Wild.
At the Shingcha village in Manipur, Mene, Ruchi, and Zeinorin (from left to right) buy fresh local produce.
Women in Ukhrul harvest Sirarakhong chilli during August and September.
Once harvested, Sirarakhong chillies are dried on a bamboo mat which is placed above a slow fire. Photos by Hill Wild.
There is a high demand for wild mushrooms—including wild shiitakes and termite mushrooms—locally.
These mushrooms are especially popular in cities like Imphal, where people seek fresh produce from the hills. Photographs of mushrooms by Thanthing MK and Hill Wild.
Hill Wild often organises meetups and get-togethers, like this one in Teinem village, for the Naga community.
They also host the Naga Supper Club, where they invite people to taste traditional Naga food. All dishes on the menu—such as perilla seeds salad, pork curry, soyabean salad, Anishi curry, lemon sauce, and black rice kheer—comprise ingredients that are directly sourced from farmers.
Himalayan Haat
Pauri Garhwal, Uttarakhand
Himalayan Haat is a social enterprise that practices jungle farming in Pauri Garhwal, a district in the southeastern part of the state. At the edges of a forest, their fruit orchards and herb plantations are allowed to grow wild, with regular monitoring but very little interference.
“Many of these crops are harvested only once a year,” explains Divya Chowfin, co-founder of Himalayan Haat. “There’s a lot that rests on each season, especially in the hills, because your time is quite limited.”
In an interview with The Locavore, Divya talks about changes in weather and land use patterns in the past few years, shifting planting cycles, and adapting to changes in the climate.
Listen here:
Situated at an elevation of around 1,700 metres in the mountains of Uttarakhand, Himalayan Haat uses spring water to irrigate their crops, and relies on the indigenous ecosystem to farm among native trees.
Source: State GIS Portal
Click to explore the range of elevations within Pauri Garhwal that show how distinct agricultural landscapes are even within the district.
Source: District Environmental Plan, Pauri Garhwal, G.B. Pant National Institute of Himalayan Environment.
Through regenerative farming, Himalayan Haat grows a range of fruits, vegetables, and herbs including strawberries, which are a summer fruit in the region. All photos by Himalayan Haat.
Monsoon in southeastern parts of Uttarakhand typically arrives in July, but in 2025, the region received heavy rainfall in May. This inadvertently impacted the harvest of strawberries, which left the plants infested with pests, as pictured above.
Similarly, in 2025, the team at Himalayan Haat picked a fair bit of chamomile, a crucial ingredient in their herbal teas and infusions. However, because the rains arrived earlier than usual, the flowers didn’t dry properly and became discoloured, rendering them unusable.
The forest and surrounding areas also witnessed landslides due to harsh weather.
In 2025, Pauri Garhwal experienced unseasonal hailstorms that impacted the produce like these apples.
A close-up image of apples pockmarked with hail.
Sustaining a forest farm in face of unpredictability is hard, especially because farming is a slow process wherein preparation happens a year in advance.
But Himalayan Haat has learned to adapt by collaborating with other local farmers in the region, making new fields in monsoon, and focussing on agrotourism via their Forest Farm Kitchen.
Tenacious Bee Collective
Kangra, Himachal Pradesh
Tenacious Bee Collective works with local beekeepers in the mountains of Kashmir and Himachal Pradesh to create hive-based products, including rare varieties of raw honey—uni- and multi-floral—and beeswax products. During the monsoon, they make sure that no moisture gets into the honey they’ve already harvested.
Given the prolonged monsoon season this year, they haven’t been able to harvest enough honey, including their bestseller Hadsar forest honey. They’ve also seen a significant decrease in bee populations.
Co-founders Malini Kochupillai and Kunal Singh spoke to The Locavore about the dwindling beekeepers and bee populations in the region, and how these bees are unable to gather nectar due to bouts of heavy, unseasonal rainfall.
Listen here:
Tenacious Bee Collective advocates for sustainable beekeeping in the rugged mountains of Kashmir and Himachal Pradesh, where elevations range from 2,500 to 11,000 feet.
Source: State GIS Portal
Click to explore the climate change risk and vulnerability shown for 2011-12 and 2017 for Himachal Pradesh.
Source: State Action Plan on Climate Change 2021-2030, Government of Himachal Pradesh.
Note: Climate change vulnerability, defined as the propensity to be adversely affected by climate change, assesses a variety of factors that include the sensitivity to harm, and the lack of capacity to adapt to changing conditions. Hazards include changes in annual average temperature, changes in annual rainfall, dry spells and consecutive wet days, and very heavy precipitation, among other stressors.
In order to bolster bee populations, Tenacious Bee Collective has been encouraging local farmers to adopt natural beekeeping practices, and grow a diversity of crops, including native grains, herbs, and flowers. All photos by Tenacious Bee Collective.
Bee hives are also increasingly being lost to floods. For many locals, gathering honey isn’t just about business—the loss in bee populations impacts them mentally and emotionally too.
Typically, there are three honey harvest seasons in a year: in March and April as spring blooms; around June, before the monsoon arrives; and in September and October after the monsoon.
Beekeepers in Bharmour village in Chamba district, Himachal Pradesh, bring their combs to a manual extractor, like Manish, as pictured, to harvest honey. The spinning action of the extractor generates force, pushing the honey out of the cells.
It is not just the bee hives that are directly affected. Flowers too fail to produce enough nectar during periods of extremely dry weather devoid of rainfall, which, in turn, impacts bee populations.
In 2024, the rain arrived four weeks earlier than usual, in June. Keeping this timeline in mind, Tenacious Bee Collective planned their trips to beekeepers—from Kangra in Himachal Pradesh to Anantnag in Kashmir—in early June this year.
Know Your Desi Ingredients from the Mountains
Learn more about The Locavore’s growing community of food producers here.
This story is part of a collaboration between The Locavore and Hands of Transition, and attempts to illuminate how food producers across India are adapting to a changing climate—through locally rooted knowledge, ecological practices, and collective strength. Know more here.
Login with Google
