The quest for Kasbai  

I am a software professional turned into an organic farmer. I own 4.5 acres of land near Dahanu, Maharashtra.  

I do not have much knowledge of Organic Farming and am still a novice in this field. In the last one year I have  

gathered some information on this subject by reading and visiting farmers practicing this method of agriculture. I try to  

experiment with different methods of agriculture at my farm, not that they are all a success. I grew rice, ground nuts,  

vegetables last year and this monsoon am trying out rice using the SRI method of cultivation though I modified it to  

suit my needs. I also have a few fruit TREES on the farm. I am not into commercial farming but grow everything for  

ourself.  

It all started in the hot summer month of April 2005. With the monsoon round the corner we started to look for a good  

variety of traditional rice to plant at our farm. Most of the farmers in and around the village of Peth had switched over  

to hybrids and there were no local traditional varieties being grown anymore.  

The younger generation of farmers thought I was crazy asking for the ‘desi’ variety as they called it. My regular visits  

to the villages around also did not yield any results and we were almost giving up hope of finding good traditional  

SEEDS before the monsoon.  

I decided to give it one last try and started speaking to some of the elders in the village, that is when I could make any  

sense of what they were saying. Most of them were too old to work and are drunk all day. In fact, they get pension from  

the government, which according to them, is meant solely for their alcohol consumption. A wonderful use for the  

pension scheme! Anyway, a series of meaningful conversations and they mentioned the name of Kasbai. Kasbai is a  

traditional long grained rice variety which has a distinct aroma akin to Basmati though much milder. It’s a long  

duration crop and most of the older people REMEMBERED growing it years ago. But they all shook their heads when I  

asked about seeds and they told me that it may have “disappeared.”  

The tales of Kasbai and its great taste made us more determined to get this seemingly lost rice from  

somewhere. I vaguely thought the government may know something about it. A visit to the AGRICULTURAL  

officer was enlightening. He had not even heard of this rice variety. His response was that the villagers were  

taking me for a RIDE and there was no rice by this name. He rattled off the names of a number of latest  

hybrids and even offered to give me some of them free of cost for a trial. Cursing myself for wasting time  

with him I moved on to the next destination.

This time it was the Adivasi Mahamandal which buys the rice from the villagers on behalf of the government. A search  

in their files revealed that Kasbai did not figure in them. A good indication why people did not grow it anymore. The  

market itself did not recognise the rice, so if you grew it you would not be able to sell it. However, the officer incharge  

here had more knowledge of rice and did remember Kasbai being sold to him a few years back.