Capturing the Narratives of Sustainable Farming: Study of Marginal Women Farmers in Five Districts of Odisha
| Author | Pushpa Singh |
| Date | 01 December 2020 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0019556120982199 |
| Published date | 01 December 2020 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Capturing the
Narratives of
Sustainable Farming:
Study of Marginal
Women Farmers in
Five Districts of Odisha
Pushpa Singh1
Abstract
This article presents an analysis of field research on sustainable farming practices
in five districts of Odisha, that have emerged as a response to the adversities
created by modern industrial agriculture and agribusiness market. The capital
and chemical-intensive farming have left a legacy of irreparable environmental
damage; and the monocultures have led to the gradual disappearance of a variety
of indigenous crops, causing erosion of the seed sovereignty.1 The first section
of the article engages with the critique of increasing monopolisation of the food
and farming systems, secured in a systematic and structured way by the forces
of global agribusiness conglomerates. The second section captures the initiatives
in which marginal women farmers are trying to revive seed saving and natural
farming that had been lost due to the green revolution. These field investigations
illuminate the exemplary ways in which such initiatives are empowering women
farmers and enabling them to reclaim food security2 and seed sovereignty in the
current milieu of agrarian distress. Such grassroots engagements show the pos-
sibility of emancipatory politics outside the formal institutional framework that
are structuring the alternative discourse rooted in local agroecology.3
Keywords
Agroecology, women farmers, food security, seed sovereignty, sustainable
farming
Article
Indian Journal of Public
Administration
66(4) 455–465, 2020
© 2021 IIPA
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DOI: 10.1177/0019556120982199
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1 Department of Political Science, Miranda House, University of Delhi, India.
Corresponding author:
Pushpa Singh, Department of Political Science, Miranda House, University of Delhi, Delhi 110007,
India.
E-mails: pushpa.du@gmail.com; pushpa.s@mirandahouse.ac.in
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