Suchergebnisse

This paper describes a participatory plant-breeding (PPB) program for maize in a rural development project financed by the United Kingdom's Department of International Development (DFID) and the Government of India and executed by the Krishak Bharati Cooperative (KRIBHCO). The program was targeted at low-resource farmers of the Panchmahals district of Gujarat. Farmers were given a range of maize varieties to try in a participatory varietal-selection program. However, none of these proved to be overwhelmingly popular with farmers, although maize variety Shweta from Uttar Pradesh was adopted by some farmers for more fertile fields. Hence, in 1993 a breeding program was begun by crossing yellow- and white-endospermed maize varieties, all of which had some acceptance or positive attributes identified in participatory trials. The breeding program targeted trails identified by farmers, and in some generations, selections were carried out by farmers in the populations grown on land rented by the project. Soil-fertility management was lower than that normally used on research-station land. The breeding program has produced several successful varieties. One of them, GDRM 187, has qualified for release and yielded 18% more than the local check in research station trials, while being seven days earlier to silk. In farmers' fields, where average yields were lower, the yield advantage was 28%. Farmers perceived GDRM 187 to have better grain quality than local landraces.

AbstractSweeping generalizations are often heard about 'the rural impact' of some developmental intervention: one notable case is that of dairy cooperatives in India. This paper examines the dairy cooperatives in 11 villages of one sub‐district in western India, and finds such great variations between them that it could be argued that the cooperative was 11 different institutions in these villages. Generalizations can, however, be put forward about the relation of dairy cooperatives in these villages to hierarchies of caste, agrarian class and gender, but through a focus on the latter variables rather than on dairy co‐operatives as prime movers of change.

Agricultural cooperatives have been promoted in India's economic development programme as a means of production while enhancing community cooperation and equity. Focusing on sugar cooperatives in Gujarat state of western India, the author shows that these cooperatives have been successful in promoting large-scale agricultural production and in improving the economic and social standing of their members. As a result, there has been an increased differentiation of the peasantry in South Gujarat. (DSE/DÜI)

During 1985 a bitter conflict erupted in India over the "reservation" system, which allocates quotes of educational and government employment positions to the Schedule castes, Scheduled tribes and other backward classes. In Gujarat the Congress Government attempted to legislate an increase in backward class reservations after winning a strong mandate to do so in the state elections. The author describes the political upheavels in Gujarat following the government's legislation attempts and discusses the dilemmas facing those who seek to establish an all-India reservation policy. (DÜI-Sen)

This paper critically examines some narratives of water scarcity in Kutch, western India. It argues that images of dwindling rainfall and increasing drought largely serve to legitimize the controversial Sardar Sarovar dam and manufacture dominant perceptions concerning scarcity. This manufacture has naturalized scarcity in the region and largely benefits powerful actors such as politicians, industrialists and large farmers. But the needs of the poor in water-limited areas are neglected. By exploring the various connotations of scarcity, the paper argues that scarcity is both a biophysical phenomenon as well as a powerful discursive construct. (DSE/DÜI)

The quest to discover the most robust predictors of economic development continues unabated. Social scientists have run the gamut, for instance, from demographic pressure to the degree of price distortion, and savings rate to the rate of technical innovation. Currently, the attention is on "social capital." Although empirical studies operationalize social capital in an almost bewildering number of ways, the shared impulse of these studies, the article suggests, has been to parlay "culture" in a form sensible to economics and policy science: in terms of its capacity to generate economic returns. While there is a pressing need to recognize the discursivity (linguistic and social embeddedness) of economic categories, "culture" translated as "social capital" is a sorely inadequate formulation. Bourdieu's notion of "symbolic capital" is, theoretically and empirically, far more instructive. Employing primary and archival evidence, the article demonstrates how the pursuit of "symbolic capital" by the dominant Patel caste has produced an unexpected trajectory of agrarian change in the Matar subdistrict of Gujarat, India; and, in so doing, it indicates how the analysis of "social capital" could be revised.