Stories from the Fields

From the Fields

In Odisha, Farming Festivals Archive Fast-Disappearing Indigenous Knowledge

Abhijit Mohanty
June 6, 2025

In southern Odisha’s Malkangiri district, indigenous communities keep traditional foodways and sources of sustenance alive through festivals. All photos by Soumya Ranjan Mohanty.

The wait for mangoes, a cooling finger millet drink, one hundred coconuts. Abhijit Mohanty documents how summer festivals in Malkangiri, Odisha, preserve foodways of memories.

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From the Fields

Farm Workers On How Heat Impacts Their Work

Mukta Patil
May 16, 2025

We spoke to agricultural workers from The Locavore's community of partner producers to understand how heat intersects with labour, especially for working women, and how they cope with rising temperatures.

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Inside The Only Caper Farm In India

Yashvi Shah
March 7, 2025

When Ishka Farms was established in 2012, they wanted to grow a crop that would help conserve groundwater, reduce their dependence on fossil fuels, and withstand southern Tamil Nadu’s scorching heat. All photos by Midhun Das.

How team members at Ishka Farms, India’s first and only caper farm in Tamil Nadu, found themselves experimenting with the ingredient,on the field and back in their home kitchens.

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From the Fields

A Better Future, Fuelled by Cups of Good Coffee

Yashvi Shah
November 15, 2024

Attempting to bridge the growing gaps between producers and consumers of coffee, Grounds For Change addresses matters of traceability, fairness, and taste. Yashvi Shah offers a glimpse into the daily realities of coffee growers M Kethegowda and M Sannarangegowda, who were central to the project’s vision.

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From the Fields

A Legacy of Making Preserves and Coolers on a Forest-Farm in Pauri Garhwal

Throvnica Chandrasekar
November 6, 2024

Divya Chowfin, the co-founder of Himalayan Haat, speaks to Throvnica Chandrasekar about farming within a natural ecosystem, running a business from the mountains, and why their bestselling Malta Cooler is also a family favourite.

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From the Fields

“We would fill our stomachs with Udad and Khurasani leaves”

Wild Food Project Team
September 3, 2024

Sunil Bhoye, a farmer and conservationist from Maharashtra, talks to Shailesh Awate of OOO Farms about the demands of foraging, and how traditional knowledge is passed down in the Kokni tribe that he belongs to.

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From the Fields

To Ensure High-quality Spices, Traceability is Everything

Yashvi Shah
August 26, 2024

Where can our spices be traced back to? Aswin Prasannakumar and Yathi Kumar, co-founders of Nilgiri Marten Spices,talk to Yashvi Shah about good spices, sourcing their produce, and how sweetening their tea with Marayoor jaggery has become a habit.

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From the Fields

GI-Tags for Food and Drinks: A Complex Web of Determining Origins and Authenticity in India

Ranjana Sundaresan
February 8, 2024

Kai Chutney from Odisha is one of the latest food items to receive the Geographical Indications (GI) tag in India. As GI-tagged foods appear in news headlines and on supermarket shelves, Ranjana Sundaresan gets to the bottom of it: what gets the GI-tag, how easy is to get one, and what even is the point?

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From the Fields

Bringing Bengal’s Cherished Winter Jaggery to the World

Throvnica Chandrasekar
January 18, 2024

It’s in the peak of winter that the sap of the date palm trees is sweetest. Sharing their own memories of eating nolen gur in winter, the co-founders of Earth Story Farms talk to Throvnica Chandrasekar about making date palm jaggery, and its skilled makers.

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Songs of Survival: The Cultural Memory that Kept Millets Alive

Sohel Sarkar
October 12, 2023

Certain food memories linger in a community’s collective consciousness long after the food itself may have disappeared from people’s plates and farmers’ fields. Sohel Sarkar writes on the farming songs and rituals that have sustained millets in different parts of India.

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