Across a diversity of landscapes, soils, and climates, native rice varieties, also called “landraces,” were cultivated by local farmers. In the early 1990s, after realizing that more than 90% of India’s native rice varieties had been replaced by a handful of high-yielding varieties through the Green Revolution, Deb began conserving indigenous varieties of rice. Today, on a modest 1.7-acre farm in Odisha, India, Deb cultivates and shares 1,485 of the 6,000 unique landraces estimated to remain in India. In one extraordinary discovery, the team documented 12 native varieties of rice that contain the fatty acids required for brain development in infants. Contrast that with the approximately 80 native varieties of rice Deb has documented that contain between 20 and 152 ppm of iron.