Beyond Basmati: Two Approaches to the Challenge of Agricultural Development in the ‘New India’

Abstract

Over the past quarter century Indian economy and society have been transformed, qualitatively as well as quantitatively. On one hand there has been sustained economic growth, but on the other growing inequality (D’Costa, Ray in this volume). Redressing these inequalities is the key development challenge now facing India. A key dimension of this transformation has been a shift of the centre of gravity of the economy to the manufacturing and especially services sectors, creating a huge and growing urban middle class, increasingly cut off from the agrarian traditions of their forebears. Nevertheless, agriculture remains the main livelihood of over half the population, and India is still a major agricultural producer. The challenge of redressing this specific imbalance is the focus of this chapter. Since the 1960s, agriculture has itself been transformed technologically and economically. The results have ranged from the growth of successful multi-national corporations to multi-suicides of small farmers, from new commercial crops to environmental degradation. Indian agriculture is now poised between two futures—one of increasing technology-driven intensification and integration into national and global markets—the other a neo-Gandhian vision of local communities renewed by ecologically based forms of small-farming producing for more local consumption. This chapter reflects on the development challenge posed by this critical moment, through the lens of a point where these alternative visions meet and interact—the dynamic border-zone between the irrigated plains and the foothills and valleys of the Himalayas, where old varieties and practices meet global export markets.