ABSTRACT
Is it possible to conserve a species, including small millets, without preserving the ecosystem in which it is cultivated? Small millets are typically cultivated in the rainfed uplands of ecologically sensitive areas like Odisha’s Koraput district. The agrarian landscape, along water flows, evolved over centuries and is rather complex, but millet cultivation using natural fertilisers like dung and crop residue mulch were critical to the growth of indigenous rice varieties in the low lands. Using examples from the Koraput district, this chapter argues that the rapid usurpation of the uplands for corporate eucalyptus and cashew plantations has transformed the ecosystem. Small millets are essentially a woman’s crop. Women decide the species, the area to be planted, its consumption and sale specifics but do not plough or sow. Eucalyptus, in the domain of men, has skewed the gender relations in these areas, leading to reductions in the cultivation and consumption of millets and falling nutrition standards. Finally, community relations are giving way to individualisation and increasing wage labour.
