BOOKS ON FOOD

Anumeha Yadav’s picture book asks—‘what are we doing to our rich food diversity, our seeds?’

Based on Anumeha’s investigative series on the central government’s rice fortification scheme—and its fallout on Jharkhand’s farmer communities—‘Our Rice Tastes of Spring’ highlights why the locals’ right to control their own food systems matters.

DEEPSHIKA PASUPUNURI | 25 MARCH 2026

Tabish Kazi, co-founder at Maaticha, with European bees (Apis mellifera). Being less adapted to forest ecosystems, these bees do not effectively contribute to biodiversity conservation, competing with native bee populations for resources. Photos courtesy of Maaticha.

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:

Our Rice Tastes of Spring is based on relationships you built while working in the Chhotanagpur region. Were you familiar with the region? What was the experience like for you?

I have reported from Jharkhand for over a decade. The first time I went there was when The Hindu posted me in the region. Jharkhand, of which Chhotanagpur is a part, is our country’s mining heartland, holding more than a third of India’s coal reserves. Over the years, I reported on a number of extractive processes in this rich forest region. Even as these destructive processes were taking place, it was here that I got the opportunity to learn and document stories of resilience by the local communities, their efforts to defend their lives, livelihoods, culture, memory, and the natural environment. Living and reporting from the region shaped my politics and beliefs.

In 2022, after an excessive monsoon, Maaticha lost large swarms of their European Bees, who don’t thrive during spells of excessive rain. “Bees are so sensitive. Now we have moved the new bee boxes into the rainshadow region, near Talegaon and Narayangaon, about 100-150 kilometres away from the farm,” Zeeba says. The climate crisis is causing the Indian monsoon to become more erratic—there are more days during the season with both no rain and very heavy rain, but fewer days with moderate rainfall, which is required for agriculture, as well as a healthy ecosystem. These patterns have also increased the risk of flooding in the Konkan region.

To adapt to these conditions, the bee boxes at Maaticha with European Bees are moved back and forth during the flowering season—demanding more effort as well as costs. 

Other species of bees, too, appear less abundant and productive. The Indian Honey Bee, which feeds predominantly on jamun flowers, has, over the past two years, brought Maaticha lesser honey. From around 200 kilograms per year to about 120 kilograms today, 2022 saw the largest dip, with just 40 kilograms of honey being harvested. The reasons could be many, Zeeba explains, but points to the increasing heat spells that cause the jamun to flower less, and for shorter spans of time. 

“We do rely on these honey sales—it is a product we can sell throughout the year, as opposed to our seasonal fruit like mango, but it has been difficult to get back on shelves after this shortfall,” Zeeba says. Maaticha’s commerce partners are no longer stocking the Jamun Honey now, due to its unpredictable supply.

How Climate Change exacerbates an already fragile business model

Changes in flowering patterns and nectarflow, along with competition in the beekeeping industry, is causing small-scale beekeepers to quit. Photos courtesy of Moonshine Honey Project.

Rohan Rehani, co-founder of Moonshine Meadery, which runs the Moonshine Honey Project as a subsidiary, shares similar stories. Conceived during the Covid-19 lockdown, the Moonshine Honey Project primarily sources honey from Rajasthan, and a few areas of Haryana, both relatively arid regions. The three main honey crops harvested using the European Bee are Acacia, Mustard, and Sidr (jujube). 

The few stationary bee boxes they have around Moonshine’s factory in Pune, Maharashtra, house the native Indian Honey Bee, largely to revive bee populations and for pollination. But their beekeeping is migratory—bee boxes moved to where flowering is happening—the Sidr in October, Acacia in November or December, and Mustard in January.

The Sidr tree flowers for two weeks or so, during the first half of October. About three years ago, the team began noticing that hot spells and higher temperatures meant the flowers were blooming for a lesser period of time. Hence, the amount of time available for Sidr collection was lower, which meant the yield was lower as well. The cost of production escalated, and since Moonshine couldn’t pass it on to the customer, they ended up absorbing the cost. “Most people in the field can’t do this, the math just doesn’t math,” Rohan says. “And that’s the real threat of climate change for producers like us; it doesn’t just affect yield, it undermines the economics of seasonal honey. When the window shrinks, there’s no other lever to pull.”

Rohan clarifies that there is now a need to move the bee boxes to where pollination is happening, because agricultural practices themselves have changed, moving away from what we now term ‘permaculture’, a philosophy that believes farms should behave like—and work with—natural ecosystems rather than replace them, to more monocropped landscapes that use pesticides, insecticides, and herbicides on a large scale. When agriculture was intercropped, with multiple crops flowering at different times, bees always had something to feed on. 

Tenacious Bee Collective’s permaculture farm in Himachal Pradesh. Photo courtesy of Tenacious Bee Collective.

In the mountains of Kashmir and Himachal Pradesh, Tenacious Bee Collective works with local beekeepers to create hive-based products, such as rare varieties of raw honey—uni- and multi-floral—as well as beeswax products. They encourage local farmers to adopt ethical beekeeping practices and grow a diversity of crops, including native grains, herbs, and flowers. Beekeepers at Tenacious Bee Collective work with both the Apis mellifera and Apis cerana indica. 

“That’s the real threat of climate change for producers like us; it doesn’t just affect yield, it undermines the economics of seasonal honey. When the window shrinks, there’s no other lever to pull.”

The Collective’s work, too, has been impacted by the climate crisis, especially prolonged monsoons since 2020. They haven’t been able to harvest enough honey, including rare varieties of honey like those from Chichiri (Indian Borage) or their bestseller, Hadsar forest honey. Like Maaticha, they have also seen a significant decrease in native bee populations.

“Every year it is becoming worse,” Kunal Singh, co-founder of Tenacious Bee Collective, says. “If there are heavy rains, bees will not be able to go out to forage, and if there are no rains, then the flowers will have no nectar. It is a very fragile situation—there has to be an equilibrium between dry weather and the rainy season.” 

Even as small-scale producers like Maaticha, Moonshine, and Tenacious Bee Collective struggle to harvest honey amidst climatic and environmental degradation, India’s honey production continues to rise exponentially. This is largely through a policy push that encourages the use of the European Bee, and a greater number of bee boxes, while sidelining native bees and their habitats.

This is a challenge for the small-scale beekeeping industry at large. Financially, there are no gains in the industry unless economies of scale (where increasing production reduces the average cost of a product per unit) are achieved. Currently, the Moonshine Honey Project has 600 bee boxes, with associated costs of a head beekeeper and four full-time beekeepers in the field (with full-time beekeepers earning rupees 20,000 per month per person). They will need to go up to 2,000 or 3,000 for the economies of scale to make sense. “Smaller people will come in, lose money, get out of the business, and someone bigger will buy it,” Rohan adds. “The bigger players will consolidate.”

The numbers, too, support this narrative.

India’s honey exports are rising exponentially, but at what cost?

➤ India is now the second-largest exporter of honey globally (up from number 9 in 2020), after China.

➤ Major Indian states producing honey: Uttar Pradesh (17%), West Bengal (16%), Punjab (14%), Bihar (12%), and Rajasthan (9%).

➤ In 2024, India produced approx. 1.4 lakh metric tonnes (MT) of natural honey.

➤ In FY 2023-24, India exported around 1.07 lakh metric tonnes (MT) of natural honey worth US $ 177.55 million.

➤ The National Beekeeping and Honey Mission, a Central Sector Scheme, has a total budget outlay of ₹500 crores, implemented for the period FY 2020-21 to FY 2025-26.

➤ As per the demand of the beekeeping sector, the Agricultural & Processed Food Products Export Development Authority (APEDA) imposed Minimum Export Price (MEP) of US $ 2,000 (₹ 1.67 lakh) per metric ton, i.e., ₹ 167.10 per kilogram for honey. The announced MEP was imposed till 31 December 2024.

➤ Between 2025 and December 2026, the MEP amount was fixed at US $1,400 per metric ton.

➤ Retail price of 1 kg of Maaticha Wildflower Honey, sourced from tribal bee-keepers in the Western Ghats: ₹ 1,425.

➤ Retail price of 1 kg of Moonshine Honey Project Sidr Honey, sourced from Rajasthan: ₹ 1,900.

➤ Retail price of 1 kg of Tenacious Bee Collective’s Raw Kangra Forest Honey: ₹ 4,000.

Forest Post sells honey procured from hives of the Asian Rock Bee (Apis dorsata), gathered by forest-dwelling communities using traditional climbing techniques in Chhattisgarh.

Cheruthen or Dammer bee honey is collected by Indigenous people from stingless bee cavities in the forest in a regulated manner. This batch is from the Chinnar Marayur rain-shadow region in the Western Ghats. Photos courtesy of Forest Post.

Manju Vasudevan, founder of Forest Post, a social impact enterprise in central Kerala’s Western Ghats, spent the first years of her career researching canopy pollinators and advocating bee habitat conservation. With a PhD in Pollination Ecology from Imperial College London, she is best placed to tie several of these threads together. Forest Post’s work focuses on helping forest-dwelling communities to assert Community Forest Rights and secure livelihoods without jeopardising the future of the forests.

“If there are heavy rains, bees will not be able to go out to forage, and if there are no rains, then the flowers will have no nectar. It is a very fragile situation.”

“There’s a huge thrust from the government to shift to Apis mellifera, but Apis cerana is the one that you rear, traditionally,” Manju says. “Ten years ago if you went to a beekeeper, he’s keeping the Apis cerana, which, in the wild, will grow in tree cavities and crevices of rocks. So Apis cerana is what one should be promoting even in a bee box, because it’s a native bee.”

Besides climatic stressors, Manju points to a changed landscape and disappearing habitats as a cause for reduced bee populations. In the Western Ghats, the past two decades have seen a severe loss in forest cover and biodiversity, owing to changes in land use. “Bees need a lot of diversity, and that’s changed. Pesticides surely must have a role. Farms would have hedges, farms would have weeds in them. All of this adds to the diversity for a bee that’s foraging or nesting. When that’s gone, that’s a problem,” Manju adds. “When you say environment—it’s food, it’s habitat, all of that counts.”

An abundance of native bees—stingless, leafcutter, carpenters, and masons—shown along with their respective nesting or foraging habitats, and the plants they pollinate. Poster produced by Forest Post with support from the Duleep Matthai Nature Conservation Trust.

A study Manju co-authored, ‘Flower visitors in agricultural farms of Nilgiri Biosphere Reserve: Do forests act as pollinator reservoirs?’ suggests a few incentives to reduce further harm to native bee populations in the Nilgiris, while providing livelihood opportunities to small-scale farmers and Indigenous forest-dwelling communities. First, the practice of pesticide-free farming, which, in effect, is pollinator-friendly farming, and second, using traditional methods to harvest honey—ones that do not allow over-harvest from wild combs of Apis cerana and Apis dorsata in the forest.

Unfortunately, large-scale and long-term studies of this nature are rare, leaving gaps in our understanding for how to value these services, and work to protect bee populations. While Manju agrees that these are necessary, and that we urgently need to ask questions about these patterns, she believes we know enough for action. 

Currently, Forest Post is working on teaching women in the villages they work with to rear stingless bees and earn an income, because working with stingless bees is a simple process. For instance, the Muthuvars, a farming community in the region, are already rearing stingless bees in long, cylindrical bamboo poles. 

“We know there is a decline, why else are people buying bee services?” Manju asks. “We should be working with communities and teaching them how to rear bees; collaborating with local NGOs to make sure native bees are being reared and incentivised.”

Mukta Patil is Projects Editor at The Locavore. She works on stories that spotlight the intricacies of our food systems, and how they interact with the climate emergency, the environment, and people. She lives with her cat, Pooki, on the outskirts of Goa.

This feature was written with inputs from Yashvi Shah. Yashvi is the Partnerships Copywriter at The Locavore. In her free time, she likes creating playlists for her friends, and going on runs.

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.​