Moatsü and the Vanishing Legacy of Heirloom Seeds

As the Ao Nagas prepare to celebrate Moatsü, it is an opportune moment to reflect not only on tradition but also on the state of our agricultural heritage. Beneath the cultural vibrancy of the festival lies an urgent question: what has become of our heirloom seeds, and what seeds are we sowing for the future?

Over the past few decades, the introduction of non-native crops and chemically intensive practices, including excessive use of common salt and herbicides, has contributed to significant soil degradation. The heirloom seeds, once the pride of our fields and the guardians of our food security, are vanishing. Years of relying on alien crops, incompatible with our soil and climate, have silently eroded both our land and our traditional practices. Soil depletion, shrinking seed sizes, pest vulnerability, and depleted water sources are no longer isolated events; they are symptoms of a deepening crisis.

Traditional seed selection, storage, and sharing practices have weakened under the pressure of government-supplied seeds and market-driven choices. Farmers, once stewards of agrobiodiversity, are now increasingly dependent on external inputs. This has eroded traditional knowledge, diminished community institutions, and heightened the vulnerability of crops to pests, leading to the extinction of ancestral varieties.

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Compounding the problem is a shift away from communal land-use practices. Changes in shifting cultivation have led to more sedentary land use, reduced reliance on traditional rice cultivation, and weakened customary resource management institutions.

To address these challenges, there is a pressing need to promote localized, practical research on land, soil, and seed preservation. Encouraging communities to document traditional knowledge could provide a critical foundation for future agricultural strategies. The opportunity to recover and preserve heirloom seeds still exists, but it is rapidly narrowing. The knowledge held by the older generation must be recorded before it is irretrievably lost. We must relearn the art of seed stewardship. Quality seed selection, traditional storage techniques, and localized seed banks must become integral to our agricultural future. If not, we risk losing not just crops, but an entire way of life.

As we celebrate Moatsü this year, let it also be a call to renew our commitment to sustainable agriculture, seed sovereignty, and the enduring legacy we owe to posterity.

MT