糖心Vlog

Issues

For almost a decade, in contrast to the dominant conventional model arising from the green revolution, two Indian states have been engaged in an in-depth reform of their agriculture:  Sikkim has been entirely converted to organic farming and, in Andhra Pradesh, “Natural Farming” now counts more than 700,000 farmers. These unprecedented transitions are insufficiently documented, yet they could shed light on issues related to technical changes, to governance on different scales, and to work and job creation, which are also crucial in other contexts.

Description

The project combines several scales of analysis (farm, village/territory, state) and revolves round five tasks:

• Technical characterization and assessment of the merits of transition, from the farmers’ viewpoint;
• Analysis of the changes in matter and energy flows induced by transition, on a territory scale;
• Multi-scale analysis of transition governance (stakeholders involved, means of interaction, respective clout, and the formal and informal rules they adopt to develop technical solutions and create new markets);
• Bioeconomic modelling (GDP, land use, diet, etc.) of a full state-wide transition;
• Comparison of transitions and dissemination of results.

To that end, the team members cover numerous disciplines: zootechny, agronomy, comparative agriculture, environmental sciences, economics, political sciences.

Expected changes

An initial characterization of the agricultural transitions under way in two Indian states. This will serve as a basis for a more ambitious project comparing several regions in the world.