Understanding agricultural transitions and sustainability: a study of farmers' perspectives in rural North-West India
Creators: name: Dalal, Anjali
Publisher: name: The University of Edinburgh
Year: 2024
Subjects: agriculture
sustainability
India
transition
rural sociology

description: Agricultural transitions in Haryana are happening in response to growing socio-economic and environmental concerns because of industrial farming methods. In practical responses, these transitions include innovations in organic and sustainable farming practices, the revival of indigenous knowledge systems, experiments with information and communication technologies, genetically modified techniques, and alternative cropping technologies. Most existing studies of agricultural transitions in India provide a macro-level analysis, overlooking the farm-level decision-making processes of change. Also, the costs and benefits associated with changes in agricultural approaches are, for the most part, distributed unequally among various actors. Inequalities based on gender, class and social agrarian structure are often reinforced due to disproportionate access to land, natural resources, and technologies. While existing studies take into consideration the ecological aspect of transition outcomes limited attention has been given to how sustainable transitions in agricultural practices impinge on social outcomes such as existing or resurfacing social inequalities, gendered power structures and rural migration in India. In this thesis, I investigate farmers’ perspectives and experiences of moving towards alternative approaches to agriculture in Haryana villages. During eleven months of fieldwork, including interruptions due to Covid-19 and farmers’ protests at the Delhi-Haryana border, I used qualitative research approaches, such as interviews, participant observation and small group discussions. My research reveals four emerging alternatives by a diverse group of farmers: i) crop diversification methods (by large-scale polyhouse farmers); ii) natural farming methods (including both large-scale and small farmers); iii) farmers’ cooperatives (particularly small and marginal farmers); and iv) organic farming methods (by new farmers or reverse migrants). Using a multifunctional agriculture framework to formulate these farm typologies, I argue that, firstly, studying farmers’ perspectives and their specific attributes of farms and farming practices is necessary to conceptualise agricultural transitions in diverse socio-cultural contexts in India. Secondly, diverse visions of sustainability must be studied while examining alternative agricultural methods in rural India. By studying farmers’ perspectives at the household and community levels, the thesis contributes to the existing gap in the research literature on understanding the social implications of transitions. Although, restrictions posed due to Covid-19 pandemic caused severe limitations on the data collection process that impacted the course of my fieldwork, I tried to make additional efforts to connect with my respondents, be more self-reflexive and adjust according to the circumstances. Finally, this thesis proposes further research at the grassroots level to identify peoples’ approaches at the farm-level and to develop an approach that studies farmers’ experiences in agricultural transition in the diverse rural settings of the country.