Marginalized small-scale farmers as actors in just circular-economy transitions: Exploring opportunities to circulate crop residue as raw material in India

Abstract

Facing substantial sustainability challenges, sustainable transitions to circular systems are increasingly called for. The use of biomass to produce textile fibers is a niche that could contribute to a circular textile system. In this niche, farmers supplying biomass would play a crucial role. Through a literature review, we argue in this article that farmers are important actors in this context, but their agency is limited by numerous institutional factors, such as cultivation practices, labor markets, and information systems. These factors together can create an institutional void, which can hamper both the agency of farmers and their ability to participate, as well as the justness of the niche. The void’s strength depends on the institutional interface a farmer is subjected to. Before just transitions to circular systems can occur, marginalized actors’ agency and ability to participate in the niche, in a just way, must be improved, by decreasing the strength of the institutional void.