Vasudev Chakravarti

Jawaharlal Nehru University, India

2 - Partnerships in the global economy (in the fields of agroecology and financial inclusion), with a specific focus on agroecology.

Prof. Archana Prasad, Jawaharlal Nehru University

Trajectories of Agrarian Transition and Questions of Sustainability: A Study of Kerala Since the Early 1980s

Agriculture in the global south has been facing persistent crises in the neoliberal period. This crisis in countries such as India is marked predominantly by a continuous decline in profitability and a concomitant squeeze on incomes, particularly for smallholders. This has been studied in the agrarian studies tradition as resulting from the withdrawal of state support, penetration of finance capital into protected markets, failure to carry out thoroughgoing land reforms, among other political-economic factors. The stream of ecological criticism has raised questions about the ecological aspects of the crisis arising from dependence on industrial agriculture through the use of inorganic inputs, including fertilisers, pesticides, and herbicides, and the adoption of environmentally destructive techniques. As a result, various sustainable agricultural strategies have emerged to address these questions.

This study examines sustainable agriculture from a perspective that integrates the political-economic approach within agrarian studies and the conception of the social metabolism, along with the disruption of human-nature relationships, to understand the relationship between ecological resilience and economic sustainability. The main focus is upon the Integrated Farming System (IFS) strategy under the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR). Keralam, a state in South India, is one of the states where the IFS is being implemented on a pilot basis among smallholder farmers. It is also a state which has a long discourse of sustainable agriculture with various experiments. This study attempts to understand the IFS strategy within this broader discourse and hence to expand further on the central objective.

The study proposes a field survey of selected locations across the main agroecological zones of Kerala where the IFS strategy is implemented, along with case studies of other sustainable agricultural strategies in the state. Secondary data from the ICAR and other sources along with literature and study of agricultural policy is used to understand the broader context.

Keywords: Agrarian Crisis, Agroecology, Metabolic Rift, Sustainable Agriculture, Integrated Farming Systems (IFS)

2021: Master’s degree in Development and Labor Studies from Jawaharlal Nehru University

2019: Bachelor’s degree in Social Sciences from the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Hyderabad Campus

“From 2022 to 2023, I worked as the Parliamentary Secretary to A. A. Rahim, Member of Parliament (India) in the Rajya Sabha.”

“I actively work with the Students' Federation of India (SFI), which campaigns and organizes for the establishment of a progressive, democratic, and egalitarian education system across India.”

Junior Research Fellowship (JRF) from the University Grants Commission (UGC) under the Ministry of Education, Government of India