One morning, an assembly is called in the fictitious village of Sohar. GainsMan—a character in Our Rice Tastes of Spring (2025)—has just arrived dressed in dark clothes and shoes. The farmers in the audience have never seen anyone like him. Holding up a packet of whiter, faster growing rice, he asks them: “All of you grow rice, but what do you earn? Are you able to sell the rice? Why do you grow so many varieties when you know you cannot sell them all?” 

At first glance, the new rice varieties GainsMan was offering—modern, hybrid—seem easy to grow and sell. But his presence also compels a broader question: What happens when external interests, which do not account for agrarian livelihoods, shape our food systems?

For paddy growers in Jharkhand’s Chhotanagpur for instance, where the book is set, rice is much more than a commodity. It is a shared resource, spanning diverse indigenous varieties—be it Matla, Lakshmi Dighal, or Noichi-dhaan—with distinct histories, characteristics, and climate-adaptable traits. Replacing them with GainsMan’s hybrids would not only mean a loss of this diversity, but also lead to adverse social, nutritional, and ecological outcomes. More importantly, it risks eroding the sovereignty of food production, moving it away from indigenous communities and into larger transnational markets. 

Consequences surrounding the proliferation of hybrid varieties, however, have often been overlooked in India’s food policy. Anumeha Yadav, investigative journalist and the book’s author, has extensively reported on this oversight, especially in the case of Jharkhand.

In 2023, Anumeha investigated the central government’s rice fortification programme, published as a three-part series on The Wire. Under this scheme, rice kernels distributed in India’s public schemes were artificially enhanced with factory-made micronutrients. The intent, on paper, was to address high rates of anemia and malnutrition in the country. But in reality, Anumeha writes, this controversial solution—backed by a coalition of major food companies—had little accountability over its safety and quality, proving detrimental to vulnerable groups. 

Last month, the scheme was temporarily suspended, citing a reduction in the shelf life of fortified rice during storage and handling, and stipulating the need for developing “a more effective mechanism for delivery of nutrients”. 

Solutions outside the market-based model, in comparison, have received little attention. In her own reporting, Anumeha highlights how several varieties of traditional rice, which are not only inherently nutritious, but also ensure food security in increasingly unpredictable weather, are increasingly becoming extinct. As social activist Veronica Dungdung, who grew up in Subdega, a forested area on the border of Jharkhand and northern Odisha, tells Anumeha: “Market determines all life [everything] these days—what we eat, we wear. Market ka formula [the way of the market] has entered and dominated our lives, our imagination and minds. But that cannot be our way of life, I believe.”

Although a fictional account, Our Rice Tastes of Spring draws on this extensive body of reporting work. Encompassing interviews, findings, as well as personal relationships, it critiques the corporate capture of food systems and what we risk losing when we privatise the commons.

Read our interview with Anumeha to know more about the process of putting the book together, how her work as a journalist informed the story: