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The political economy of agricultural policies - why certain interventions may be preferred by political leaders rather than others - is well recognized. This paper explores a perspective that has previously been neglected: the political economy of the agricultural statistics. In developing economies, the data on agricultural production are weak. Because these data are assembled using competing methods and assumptions, the final series are subject to political pressure, particularly when the government is subsidizing agricultural inputs. This paper draws on debates on the evidence of a Green Revolution in India and the arguments on the effect of withdrawing fertilizer subsidies during structural adjustment in Nigeria, and finally the paper presents new data on the effect of crop data subsidies in Malawi. The recent agricultural census (2006/7) indicates a maize output of 2.1 million metric tonnes, compared to the previously widely circulated figures of 3.4 million metric tonnes. The paper suggests that 'data' are themselves a product of agricultural policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper attempts to understand why debates and controversies on agricultural water use in India have taken a bipolar form, characterized by clamours and silences, and in which, paradoxically, Indian agricultural water governance and policy has shifted very little in response to the extremely vibrant and intensive public debate and action on water resources. The paper identifies the technical features of water control systems and the institutional features of the Indian (water) governance structure as the material conditions of that polarization and the source of the deadlock. I argue that the form and content of agricultural water use debates and struggles reflect and help to reproduce their material conditions of existence rather than to transform them. The analysis presented here may help to resolve the paradox and suggest new avenues and emphases for critical analysis and public action. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the national and transnational character of mobilization against GM crops in India, South Africa and Brazil in the ten-year period to 2005. By examining the contexts and practices of mobilization across the three countries, and in particular the complex, often fraught, local and global connections, the paper examines the diverse mobilizations that have occurred. The paper argues that to understand these processes, particular national political and economic contexts must be appreciated, alongside how the GM debates articulate with other foci for activism and the complex and often fragile nature of alliances that make up activist networks. The paper shows how the debate about GM crops has become a much wider one: about the future of agriculture and small-scale farmers, about corporate control and property rights and about the rules of global trade. In sum, a debate not just about the pros and cons of a particular set of technologies, but about politics and values and the future of agrarian society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The idea of a 'good farmer' who adheres to scientific methods of crop production and produces high yields was commonly articulated by scientists and some farmers in Malwa, central India, while evaluating soybean farming. However, through detailed ethnographic description of the everyday practices of soybean farmers in Malwa, this paper argues that there is no direct link between scientific methods and high productivity, defined as yield per unit of land, because the outcome is dependent on variables that cannot be controlled by farmers. Rather, the metaphor of a 'good farmer' was selectively used by upper-caste farmers to reinforce their power and authority in the face of declining state support to emphasize their continued importance to agriculture and the state. When upper-caste farmers were less productive, they placed the blame on the environment, but when lower-caste farmers produced less, the blame was placed on their (lack of) capability to understand scientific techniques that were expected to increase productivity. This paper suggests that instead of using the productivity discourse to evaluate farming, a different valuation reveals the positive contribution of soybean as a poor farmer's crop due to its agronomic characteristics and market environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The question of women's land rights has a relatively young history in India. This paper briefly traces that history before examining why gendering the land question remains critical, and what the new possibilities are for enhancing women's land access. Potentially, women can obtain land through the State, the family and the market. The paper explores the prospects and constraints linked to each, arguing that access through the family and the market deserve particular attention, since most arable land in India is privatized. On market access, the paper makes several departures from existing discussions by focusing on the advantages, especially for poor women, of working in groups to lease in or purchase land; using government credit for land rather than merely for micro–enterprises; and collectively managing purchased or leased in land, the collectivity being constituted with other women, rather than with family members. Such group functioning is shown to have several advantages over individual or family–based farming. This approach could also help revive land reform, community cooperation and joint farming in a radically new form, one centred on poor women. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Forms of labour hiring and the extent of unemployment are analysed using primary data collected from two villages in Haryana (India) during 2002–3. Data from these villages show that wage labourers, particularly women, faced extremely high levels of unemployment. Employment in agriculture was limited and new forms of labour hiring contracts had emerged under conditions of high unemployment. Earnings of manual workers were very low and gender disparities in wages very high. In one of the villages, a high concentration of landholdings and a decline in labour use facilitated the use of long-term workers. Labour relations were characterized by significant degrees of unfreedom, although the extent and nature of unfreedom varied considerably between casual and long-term workers, and between the two villages. In particular, long-term siri workers worked under conditions that were akin to bondage. It is argued that a very high degree of unemployment, combined with unequal caste and land relations and dependence on employers for credit, contributed to sustenance of unfree labour relations in rural Haryana. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The doctrine of ‘improvement’ has often been identified with the introduction – and presumed failure – of the Permanent Settlement in Bengal in 1793. Although recognized as central to British agrarian policies in India, its wider impact and significance have been insufficiently explored. Aesthetic taste, moral judgement and botanical enthusiasm combined with more strictly economic criteria to give an authority to the idea of improvement that endured into the middle decades of the nineteenth century. Concern for improvement also reflected dissatisfaction with India's apparent poverty and deficient material environment; it helped stimulate data-collection and ambitious schemes of agrarian transformation. A precursor of later concepts of development, not least in its negative presumptions about India and the search for external agencies of change, improvement yet shows many of the false starts and intrinsic limitations early attempts to transform rural India entailed. This article reassesses the significance of improvement in the first half of the nineteenth century in India, especially as illustrated through contemporary travel literature and through the aims and activities of the Agricultural and Horticultural Society of India. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]