As I stood in the middle of a 28-acre community managed grasspea field in West Bengal, India, I asked how the villagers divided the tasks of managing the field. There were puzzled looks on the farmers’ faces. ‘There is no labour with grasspea … only sowing. God does the rest.’
Former ICARDA pulse breed Ashuthosh Sarker told me that the proper moniker for the hardy crop is ‘Grasspea is a Gracious Gift from God Globally’. It’s not a terribly demanding crop. It’s hardy enough to withstand pretty much anything Mother Nature will throw at it. Farmers just throw some seed in a rice paddy before harvesting the rice and squish the seeds into the soil when they harvest. The moisture in the soil in the rice paddy and an occasional rain are all the inputs that grasspea needs. That’s called relay cropping.
As I walked into the field I tried not to crush the grasspea and reduce the yield. ‘Don’t worry’ my hosts shouted. ‘Grasspea likes that.’ A farmer was grazing his goats in one field of grasspea and I thought that would mean a reduced yield. On the contrary, by biting off the tips, the goats help encourage the plants to get bushier.
Our hosts at the Bidhan Chandra Krishi Viswavidyalaya university provided us with a Bengal lunch where I tried grasspea for the first time. The tender shoots of the plant are harvested and lightly cooked in oil and garlic. And my conclusion was that the gracious gift of God is not only hardy and nutritious, it’s yummy as well.
All images used on this page were photographed by Michael Major for the Crop Trust and used here under a CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 license.