Understanding Agrarian Crisis: A Participatory and Qualitative Systemic Analysis

Abstract

As yet, most of the attempts undertaken to study the agrarian crisis in India have lacked systemic analysis of such a complex, non-linear, and dynamic problem that spans a number of facets including social, cultural, agricultural, ecological, economical, and political dimensions. The present study attempts to carry out a participatory investigation of the crisis with a number of farmers from six different villages to understand the systemic intricacies driving the crisis. The qualitative systemic analysis of the crisis revealed the following facts: (i) Various subsystems and elements of the agrarian system (such as soil, farm size, cattle, bees, birds, and friendly bugs) have depleted and the system has been trapped into forty five self-reinforcing vicious loops; (ii) Agrarian system has become investment intensive, synthetic inputs intensive, and dependent on centralized market, credit institutions, laborers, and knowledge for the usage of the synthetic inputs ; (iii) Crops have become vulnerable to the vagaries of climatic conditions, pest attacks, various plant diseases, low soil fertility, and water stresses ; (iv) Agrarian system is subjected to a risk of disproportionate support prices; and (v) Increasing living expenses have further exacerbated the crisis.