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Organic Agriculture from the Perspective of Small Farmers’ Livelihood Strategies: Two Cases from Central and South India

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Environmental Geography of South Asia

Part of the book series: Advances in Geographical and Environmental Sciences ((AGES))

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Abstract

Although organic agriculture has been studied as a livelihood and an intervention for small farmers, it has rarely been analyzed within their overall livelihood strategies. This article explores how small farmers’ livelihood strategies influence their perceptions of organic agriculture, focusing on the interactions of organic farming with other livelihood options. The analysis draws on two case studies of two projects run by a non-governmental organization aiming to convert small farmers in India into certified organic farmers. In the first case, the ecological and economic values of organic agriculture suited the livelihood strategy of subsistence farmers. However, this perception was applied not to the production of an exportable crop, coffee, but to the production of a variety of crops. In the second case, where small farmers were concerned with a specific cash crop, cotton, they put more emphasis on the economic value of organic agriculture. Such a perception of organic agriculture eventually led them to prefer conventional farming. In both cases, the interactions with other livelihood options made small farmers’ organic agriculture unsuitable for export purposes. The form of organic agriculture practiced by small farmers may not be linked with organic markets in the global North.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Many of the association members were from a “scheduled tribe” who had only possession rights to their land (see Kjosavik and Shanmugaratnam 2007).

  2. 2.

    Concerning some coffee varieties, the speed of ripening differs among berries on a bush, which makes it difficult for farmers to pick out only ripe berries after harvest, but if they wait until all berries are ripe, some are rotten by then. Therefore, the project introduced a specific variety whose berries ripened evenly.

  3. 3.

    The number of total households was surveyed by the District Rural Development Agency in the year 2003–2004.

  4. 4.

    This information is based on a survey conducted by the mandal revenue office in 2001. Mandal is the administrative unit below the district unit.

  5. 5.

    Non-members who obtained non-Bt seeds through members planted both Bt and non-Bt seeds together for conventional cultivation.

  6. 6.

    “Cultivating nontoxic … crops (refuges) in the proximity to transgenic crops that produce Bt toxins is widely recommended to delay pest adaptation to these toxins” (Vacher et al. 2004: 913).

  7. 7.

    Truscott et al. (2011) also note better prices for conventional cotton in India, which continued at least until June 2011, tempting contract growers to abandon organic cotton.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Graduate School of Social Design Studies, Rikkyo University, Tokyo, Japan

    Rie Makita

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  1. Rie Makita
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Correspondence to Rie Makita .

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  1. University of Delhi, Delhi, India

    R.B. Singh

  2. Polish Academy of Sciences, Krakow, Poland

    Pawel Prokop

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Makita, R. (2016). Organic Agriculture from the Perspective of Small Farmers’ Livelihood Strategies: Two Cases from Central and South India. In: Singh, R., Prokop, P. (eds) Environmental Geography of South Asia. Advances in Geographical and Environmental Sciences. Springer, Tokyo. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-4-431-55741-8_14

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