CULTURE

What Are Seeds, When Not Sold?

Oishika Roy explores experiences of seed savers and scientists to gather proof of relationships between people and seeds beyond that of money: generational, and through the principle of commons.
Oishika Roy
25 March 2026

Against the ruins of a textile mill in Colaba, Mumbai, on a January evening this year, farmers and seed savers Abhijit Patil and Shailesh Awate implore an urban audience to care about the food grown many miles away from them—in the rural and tribal regions of Maharashtra. “India produces three to four times the amount of rice it needs,” they insist during a panel discussion on seeds and food security at the second edition of The Gathering, a festival bringing together immersive dining experiences, talks, and workshops centered around Indian food.

“Yet, we rank 105 out of 127 countries on the Global Hunger Index. The surplus rice produced subsidises costs for middlemen [instead of contributing to food security],” they say. Through the hour-long discussion, they reveal that India’s problem with food security is not a problem of insufficient production, but the fact that seed companies’ and middlemen’s commercial interests are being prioritised over those of growers and consumers. What the audience learnt was just how many nutritious and hardy seeds have been lost, making way for lab-engineered seed varieties that are poor in micro- and macro-nutrients, but are commercially viable for large seed corporations. 

Photographer and farmer Abhijit Patil has been trying to alert the audience about this concern for a while now, using social media, photographs, and public conversations as his mediums. One example of such an engagement was the exhibition ‘Seed Stories’ Abhijit curated. The only edition of the exhibition took place in Pune in March 2025 with the intention of not only portraying the sheer diversity of India’s indigenous, heritage seeds, but also bringing their stories into the mainstream, beyond the disciplines of science that are often difficult to access. 

As a practising permaculturist at his farm in Muradpur, Ratnagiri, Abhijit extends his photojournalism to documenting and preserving indigenous seeds and landraces (traditional agricultural varieties distinct to a region) with seed savers along the Western Ghats. For example, with the Shrushtidnyan seed bank in Devrukh, Maharashtra, which saves natural and local seeds to provide farmers of the region with economic autonomy, Abhijit photographed and labelled 75 rice varieties. 

To him, this is an opportunity to portray what might appear invisible: “When you see something in the market, usually all the processes that are so laborious have already happened behind the curtains. (But the truth is) farming can’t be done without the skillset and knowledge carried on from generation to generation within the family.” 

The aim of the exhibition ‘Seed Stories’ curated by Abhijit Patil was to make visitors understand the various lived experiences of seeds through a series of stories, art, and poetry. Photos by Oishika Roy.

Abhijit is able to deftly tell a story through photographs—a story of the generations of work, time, and resources that go into producing each seed. Simultaneously, he also recounts why these seeds have deep cultural significance: for instance, Javayachi Gundi is a rice variety often cooked for the son-in-law in the northern parts of the Konkan region, while a particular variety of jowari is used to make puffed lahya, important in festivals for local deities. “There are relationships between people and their seeds that traverse beyond the simple ‘formula’ of ‘one crop isn’t fetching a price, we’ll move to a different one,’” he says. 

These stories, Abhijit tells me, “play(s) the role of making things accessible. We’re not moved by research papers. As a society, humans have only been changed through stories. If we don’t have a narrative on the diversity of seeds in the form of stories, we reach only a certain audience.” These stories are also crucial in building evidence in the long term of relationships that people have had with the seeds—in growing them, harvesting them, and sustaining through them. 

While making knowledge about seeds accessible, the stories also show the world—an audience that goes beyond scientists and seed corporations—that there is more to seeds than the final biological material one sees. There are relationships, labour, and culture, which act as testament against the rapid commercialisation of seeds.

“The Song Says, This Land and its Seeds Are Ancestral, like Family”

Adivasi activist Prakash Bhoir is known most for the Marathi songs he writes and sings on his people’s relationship with Mumbai’s forested land. The exterior of his home in the city’s Aarey Milk Colony is adorned with Warli drawings—of people sowing and dancing, deer and leopards running and chasing, and men playing the tarpa, a conical wind instrument made out of emptying and attaching massive gourds and bamboo stems. He shows me YouTube videos of the songs he’s worked on. The lyrics (translated from the Marathi) go like this: 

“My relation with the forest goes way back,

the trees, fruits, flowers, and we are one big family

we learnt farming by sowing seeds 

we are grateful to our ancestors

their names aren’t written on any paper.”

While we watch the videos, he explains, “See, the song says, this land and its seeds, they’re ancestral, like family.” Both Prakash and his wife Pramila Bhoir are closely involved in the citizen-led ‘Save Aarey’ movement. While Prakash retires from the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation’s (BMC) water department next year, he also farms on the land adjoining his house, along with Pramila, who then sells the fresh vegetables they grow at the market behind Jogeshwari-Vikhroli Link Road.