Abstract
Richa Kumar questions the conventional wisdom of equating any Agricultural Revolution only with improved productivity of the concerned crop, qualifying it as a revolution. The book forces us emphatically to rethink, whether the acclaimed Yellow Revolution of soyabean in Malwa region, through the eChoupals is actually a revolution, bringing economic prosperity to the farmers. The two major claims of eChoupal intervention in Yellow Revolution namely, providing the farmers with price information through the internet and disintermediating the soyabean supply chain using information technology are the central issues critically examined, in this voluminous book.
The book is mainly the author’s first person narrative based on her research project in Ranipura and nearby villages of Dhar district over a period of a decade and has relied on huge bibliography of more than 370 sources too. The qualitative study primarily depends on case studies, describing things as they are (rather than getting entrapped in glorified myths of revolution), the perception of people and the challenges faced in implementation of the program. The reader gets a clear idea on the intricacies of Malwa region of Madhya Pradesh, the agrarian structure, the impact of choupals in soyabean cultivation. The book deals with production practices, labour relations, environmental costs, caste and gender dimensions, the techno-managerial themes of development, productivity, the role of information technology, intermediaries and accountability. The book doesn’t deal with all aspects of Yellow Revolution which includes significant achievement in oilseeds production through other oilseeds like groundnut and mustard, use of high quality seeds, expansion of area of cultivation of oilseeds, government’s support through Minimum Support Price (MSP) in oilseeds. Its limited and in-depth focus is on the impact of eChoupals through the introduction of Information Technology and the claim of Disintermediation, in improving the socioeconomic status of farmers, in soyabean revolution. The soyabean cultivation was introduced in 1970s as a filler crop in kharif fallow during rainy season, which has started giving additional income due to double cropping. The private Mandi and Oilfed (Madhya Pradesh State Cooperative Oilseed Growers’ Federation) primarily constituted the soyabean supply chain. By 2000, ITC-IBD, India’s largest agribusiness entity began the eChoupal (soyachoupal or choupal) project, by setting up village internet centres, marketing of soyabean and further established Choupal Sagars (rural malls).
The major advantage of Oilfed and Choupals is that the farmers had an assured buyer, assured price, fairness in weighing and fixation of quality, assured free transportation, supply of quality seeds, fertilizers and pesticides. But interestingly, rather than the IT and disintermediation claims, non-human factors like the characteristics of soyabean as a crop, rains in Malwa, soil type, need for less inputs and investment, easy management, the norms of quality in soya bean are attributed as the primary reasons for the positive change including the better bargaining position for higher wages. Important offshoots of this development have been that the behaviour of traders towards farmers had changed for the better, regardless of the crop that the farmer was selling and empowered the adivasi labourers to exercise more power and assert in economic relationships with their employers, who are mainly upper caste farmers.
In any agricultural revolution, Productivity of the crop is considered as the only barometer of success, ignoring other factors like the sustainability/environmental impacts, socio-economic aspects of farming including the existing inequality amongst farmers on lines of class or region, gender oppression etc. The book highlights that ‘The notion of “revolution”—green, yellow, blue—has been used to frame the problem facing the Indian countryside in terms of a “crisis” of quantity, and, then, has been used to justify narrow, technical solutions that focus on production alone’ (p. 104). The underprivileged farmers remain unempowered inspite of the overall economic prosperity, due to the overemphasis only to increase the productivity, neglecting other socioeconomic issues. The author doubts the scarcity theory being floated by the experts in support of the need for revolution aiming ostensibly to save the country from a food crisis.
Justifying the Technical solution in the implementation of the program, by all major stakeholders has been dealt in detail through interesting case studies. Information technology is generally assumed to be the autonomous agent of change. Providing rate information to the farmers through internet by choupals was expected to empower the farmers, by reducing the information arbitrage. Through empirical evidences, the author has clearly demystified this myth. ‘But this masks socioeconomic, cultural and political hierarchies that often mediate access to information, and, more often, constrain farmers from acting upon information that they may already possess’ (p. 10). The selection of Sanchalaks of Village Internet Centre was primarily based on the criteria of education, having a concrete ceiling house and owning a telephone, thus virtually eliminating the possibility of any socio-economically deprived person to be empowered. Similarly, owning land in one’s name is mandatory to become cooperative society members, this has eliminated the tenant farmers and sharecroppers immediately from availing any benefit. The lack of formal land ownership prevented a majority of adivasi and lower caste farmers from participating in the Choupals and Oilfed societies. As none of the underprivileged farmers held bank accounts nor could they afford to wait for many days to receive the money, the precondition of payment only through cheque was a strong deterrent in the participation of such communities. Many of those who held positions of influence in the cooperative society were also post-holders in the panchayat and in Oilfed. The initial 100 or so sanchalaks selected this way ended up being sarpanches or village traders themselves (p. 327).
Sustainability associated with water and soil crisis has been dealt through an interesting concept of ‘Technology treadmill’. The farmer cultivating soyabean is forced to be on the treadmill, to incur high cost on fertilizers, pesticides and seeds, which in turn increases the cost of cultivation, making the entire cultivation unsustainable. The degradation of soil quality and depletion of ground water due to deep tubewells for extensive irrigation are the long-term crisis impacts, neglected for the immediate gains of productivity. Unfortunately, the soil and water crisis does not find value in judging the success of revolution, as in India, we do not price the water and power to reflect the scarcity of these resources. So, the farmers do not take these factors seriously. ‘Rather than framing the positive contribution of soya bean as a poor farmer’s crop, the productivity discourse promotes yield anxiety and further pushes farmers onto a technological treadmill’ (p. 37).
Increased gender oppression in the society is attributed to soyabean being a cash crop, as opposed to foodcrops. The improved economic prosperity due to soyabean cultivation has mainly helped in easing the labour burden of men, rather than that of women. In the soyabean revolution, women are bypassed in reaping the benefits, irrespective of class or region. ‘Differentiation between men’s crops and women’s crops lay in the destination of the products: that meant for cash exchange was managed by men; and that meant for home consumption was managed by women’ (p. 156). This gender bias in the society transcended the class and caste, as narrated through the stories of Savitabai and Gangabai, women of richest households and Rewabai, the poorest adivasi widow in the village.
Disintermediating (removal of traditional mandis) the supply chain of soyabean was one of the primary aims of choupals. Like the Oilfed, eChoupal too sought to replace the village trader by a formal village level marketing institution with adequate safeguards for the interests of farmers. But the experience as shared by the farmers showed, neither the cooperative system (Oilfed) nor the private company (choupals) model succeeded in formally addressing the needs of poor, adivasi, and lower-caste farmers in Malwa. These farmers couldn’t formally access the services of Choupals and rather depended on the secretary of Oilfed and sanchalak of Choupals. ‘Experiences of farmers at various marketing institutions are mediated by their social, economic, political and cultural relationships with market intermediaries’ (p. 336).
The choupals, as private markets could improve the market efficiency to a very limited extent, but posed some serious problems to the farmers. The sheer private nature of the choupals had limited government oversight and offered limited scope of any collective action by farmers, unlike the mandi system. The existence of hundreds of soyabean processing industries, as part of the traditional mandi system became weakened. ‘Since both the mandi traders and the choupals were price receivers in the global soyabean supply chain, there was limited possibility for them to compete on the price. Instead, the benefits of chorals were associated with non-price elements such as better weighment and courteous behaviour’ (p. 20). The book could highlight the way in which the technology has hidden the shifting of intermediation from the local networks towards the corporatised systems, which could not be held accountable towards farmers’ interests.
To summarise, the book convincingly demystifies certain myths of Yellow Revolution especially the impact of Information Technology through choupals, claim of disintermediation, limitations of techno-managerial description of revolution, in improving the socio economic status of farmers. The notions that mere introduction of technology alone can transform the agrarian relationships in empowering or disintermediating the supply chain have been proved to be doubtful claims. The goal of disintermediating the supply chain in soyabean was observed to finally end up empowering the already empowered class of farmers, making many sanchalaks of choupals as sarpanchs or village traders. The importance of how the technology is being put in context in the design is more important, than mere use of technology. So, while framing the policy, the technological design of these markets and rules governing participation, oppressive gender relations must be studied in conjunction with social and economic forces.
A new approach of studying rural society and agriculture, thinking of alternate trajectories has been elucidated in this book, which would be a good read to civil servants and policy makers, in understanding different perspectives to rethink on the revolutions in agriculture.