Farmer Tsering Chondol is baffled when asked how big her barley field in Ladakh is. She’s never gotten around to measuring the undulating expanse of golden spikelets; she estimates it must be equal to half a football field.

That’s a lot of barley.

One would presume it accounts for her main source of livelihood. But Tsering sheepishly admits that until very recently, she thought of barley as a convenience crop, a corollary of the land’s traditional cropping patterns, a side effect of the Ladakhi lifestyle where the staple thukpa (a medley of stew and noodles) features barley as the main ingredient.

Tsering isn’t alone in her admission. This was the common consensus across farming families, which entrepreneur and local resident Tsetan Dorjay (27) discovered during the months he travelled across Ladakh while building ‘Siachen Naturals’ — an organic product brand that empowers farmers in the Siachen Valley.

A conversation with the farmers revealed that their umbilical link with barley went beyond traditional sentiment; the crop helped them firm their resolve to pursue organic farming. Tsetan elaborates, “In Ladakh, we don’t have green grass in winters. So, we feed our cows barley during these months. The cow dung helps us fertilise the fields, letting us continue organic farming.” This realisation helped him empathise with families who accumulated barley for years on end, even though it did not fetch them money. At least it helped tide their cows through the winter.

Barley is something of a hero in Ladakh. And, Siachen Naturals’ genius lies in a model that brings the crop out of storage, instead, assuring it its moment in the sun, while also giving farmers an impetus to grow it.

Helping farmers rediscover the promise of indigenous crops

In Ladakh, barley assumes myriad forms — it is ground into flatbread that is enjoyed with baril (ground apricot kernels and walnuts), ground into tsampa (made from roasted barley flour) from which thukpa noodles are formed, features in skyu (a thick stew with vegetables, noodles, and meat) and in kholak (a fermented barley drink). “It is in everything,” farmer Tsering points out.

But, despite its ubiquitous nature, farmers weren’t monetising it. In fact, a decade ago, the crop was at the brink of decimation. Sharing more about the dystopian mood back then, farmer Tsering says, “With more and more young people not wanting to follow farming, there was the chance that our fields would die. There was no

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