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Adapting to Environmental and Industrial Stresses
A case study on farmers from different social positions in the coastal region of
Karaikal, India
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Adapting to Environmental and Industrial Stresses
A case study on farmers from different social positions in the
coastal region of Karaikal, India
Supervisors: Dr. L. de Klerk & Msc. J. Stephen Written by: Nick Miltenburg
10073876
nickmiltenburg@msn.com
Student at: Bachelor Programme Human Geography & Urban Planning Specialisation in International Development Studies
Faculty of Human and Behavioural Sciences University of Amsterdam
Date: 11th of July, 2014
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Abstract
Environmental and industrial stresses are troubling farmers all around India. The agrarian crisis is its outcome. As a result of various policies and environmental changes many farmers find themselves in despair.
To get an idea in what way farmers are adapting to these stresses, 35 open and semi-structured interviews are conducted in the coastal region of Karaikal in the south of India. Karaikal is known for its newly built port which is the biggest private port of India to date. The case is exemplary for the bigger picture as India is industrialising rapidly. But the farmers are affected from two sides. Environmental hazards and stresses are common in the form of water scarcity and increasing groundwater salinity.
Every farmer is adapting to these stresses in his or her own way. The aim of this study is to find out whether there are any differences between various social groups in their way of adaptation. It is found that there are significant variations between SC and OBC farmers in fertilising methods. Also, the process of regrounding differs between both groups.
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Preface
This thesis was written as part of the bachelor Human Geography & Urban Planning with a specialisation in International Development Studies at the University of Amsterdam, faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences. Together with 17 students, we visited Chennai and were able to do fieldwork along the coast of Tamil Nadu for about six weeks.
First of all, I want to thank Dr. Leo de Klerk. With great passion and willingness he helped me finding the right track and scientific background to start writing my thesis. Also, I want to thank Johny Stephen for his helpful advice, especially in India. When Indian officials were getting bothersome, Johny would call to calm down and explain what to do. I am very thankful to Dr. Maarten Bavinck, the initiator of the exchange. Having the possibility to go to India and do fieldwork really changed my view on doing social science research. In India, he helped me a lot with finding a more focussed subject and the right contact persons.
I want to thank the Institute of Ocean Management at Anna University in Chennai and its entire staff for their great hospitality. Dhana Lakshmi, who was our contact person during the first two weeks, helped in every possible way.
A special thanks to K. Suburamanian, who guided us all the way to Karaikal, arranged accommodation and scooters and was available 24 hours for a call. During my last night in Chennai, we drank a cup of Indian tea in one of the many tea stalls. He really inspired me by explaining his life story.
My guide, friend and translator, P. Arunachalam, has been of great importance. The research would not be possible without him. Although working together sometimes was challenging, I have the idea we gathered a big amount of data in a short time. As a researcher himself, he knew how to get to talk to the right people. One of these persons was ms. Indumathi, director at the Agricultural Office in TRP. She helped me with a lot of statistical and government data.
Finally, I want to thank all the farmers and families that welcomed me into their houses and told me their personal stories. The experience was an eye opener to me and showed me again another side of India.
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List of abbreviations
ATMA: Agricultural Technology Management Agency BPT: Bapatla
CRZ: Coastal Regulation Zone DAP: Di-ammonium Phosphate
GATT: General Agreement on Tariff and Trade GHI: Global Hunger Index
HTL: High Tide Line
HVP: High Yielding Variety Seed Program HYV: High Yielding Variety
LAB: Land Acquisition Bill NFSA: National Food Security Act OBC: Other Backward Caste
SC: Scheduled Caste
SL: Sustainable Livelihood TRP: Tirumalarajanpattinam
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Table of contents
ABSTRACT ... 3
PREFACE ... 4
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ... 5
MAPS ... 9
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INTRODUCTION ... 11
1.1 Problem statement ... 12 1.1.2 Conceptual schema ... 131.2 Social and scientific relevance ... 13
1.3 Thesis outline ... 14
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FRAMEWORK ... 15
2.1 Empirical framework ... 15
2.1.1 Inorganic- or conventional farmers ... 15
2.1.2 Organic farmers ... 16
2.1.3 Integrated farming ... 17
2.1.4 Non-active farmers ... 17
2.2 Theoretical framework ... 18
2.2.1 Adaptation/Adaptive capacity and vulnerability ... 18
2.2.2 Sustainable livelihood ... 21
2.2.3 Caste position ... 23
2.2.4 The government reaction to globalisation: Subsidies, restrictions and protectionism ... 24
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METHODOLOGY ... 27
3.1 Research design ... 27
3.1.1 Location ... 28
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3.2 Research methods ... 29
3.2.1 Data collection ... 30
3.2.2 Sampling method ... 30
3.2.3 Operationalization ... 31
3.3 Social research criteria ... 31
3.3.1 Reliability ... 31
3.3.2 Validity ... 31
3.4 Limitations ... 32
3.1.1 The ethics of doing social science research in India ... 32
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THE EFFECTS OF ENVIRONMENTAL STRESSES ... 34
4.1 The Green Revolution ... 34
4.2 The impact of environmental stress to marginal and small scale farmers in TRP ... 37
4.2.1 Dealing with water scarcity and high salinity levels ... 37
4.2.2 Gaining back control of the environment ... 41
4.2.3 The emergence of organic farming ... 43
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THE EFFECTS OF INDUSTRIALISATION AND MODERNISATION ... 46
5.1 Industrialisation in post-colonial India: Assessing the problems, implications and government acts ... 46
5.1.1 A brief history of how India industrialised ... 47
5.1.2 Relevant government acts and implications ... 48
5.2 Changing the agricultural landscape: Adapting to industrialisation by modernizing the farmland ... 51
5.2.1 Environmental degradation ... 52
5.2.2 The changing agricultural labour market: searching for alternatives ... 54
5.2.3 The answer of the government: subsidies and incentives ... 56
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DISCUSSION AND SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER RESEARCH ... 58
6.1 Discussing caste position in TRP ... 58
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7.1 Answering the main and sub questions ... 60
7.1.1 Adapting to environmental stresses ... 60
7.1.2 Adapting to industrial stresses ... 61
7.1.3 Linking environmental and industrial stresses ... 62
BIBLIOGRAPHY ... 64
APPENDIX ... 70
Questionnaire ... 70
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Maps
The Union Territories if India, also known as the State of Puducherry. Karaikal here indicated in yellow.
10 TRP and the four surrounding researched villages. The MARG Karaikal Port located at the bottom right.
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1
Introduction
Palagummi Sainath, an Indian journalist focussing mainly on agrarian issues, started his lecture at the Pondicherry University on the increasing inequality and the agricultural crisis in India as follows:
“Pondicherry has a water crisis. So does Mumbai, so does Maharashtra. In the midst of a place where water is getting less and less, all over Mumbai, Pune, on the Mumbai – Pune highway, residential buildings are coming up. Thirty to forty floor buildings with an individual swimming pool on every floor […] now, who were the construction labourers of these buildings? The construction labourers were all agricultural labourers and small farmers, marginal farmers, of Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, parts of Maharashtra. Even from Tamil Nadu. They’ve all come from drought affected areas where there is no water, and they are putting up buildings with a swimming pool on every floor.”
– P. Sainath during his lecture at the Pondicherry University in November 2013 He exemplifies multiple issues in a couple of sentences. The water shortage is severe in many parts of India. Inequality is increasing and a growing middle class is emerging. The agricultural sector is dealing with big problems from both environmental stresses as well as from industrialisation and modernisation. Many farmers see their yields plummet and diversify their income source in order to sustain in their livelihood.
According to the Census of India (2001) there are about 176 million people relying on agriculture or agriculture related jobs. This is 56.6% of the total working force of India. Most of them are conducting agriculture as their primary source of income. Approximately 80% of them are defined as a small or marginal farmer. This implies that many Indians are affected as result of the agrarian crisis.
The agrarian crisis emerged out of a history of liberalisation of the economy, the Green Revolution, decreasing rains, industrialisation and various other reasons. Depletion of the soil, intensifying droughts and increasing salinity levels are just a few of the various environmental stresses the farmers are dealing with. Pollution, rising land values and increasing labour costs are just some examples of the consequences of industrialisation. Farmers are having a hard time earning an income out of their land. Many farmers in complete despair, as a result of the lack of income and indebtedness, commit suicide.
12 Compared to the cotton producing states the farmer suicides are comparatively low in Tamil Nadu. The indebtedness of the cotton producing farmers is much higher than among the rice producing farmers found in most parts of the Tamil Nadu coast. The focus in this thesis therefore will not be on the indebtedness, but much more on the initial causes of the agrarian crisis and the way in which farmers from different social positions adapt to these stresses. There is much more to the crisis than just the indebtedness of farmers. Several of these aspects will be explained in this thesis.
1.1
Problem statement
This ends up in the following problem statement:
How do farmers in Karaikal with different social positions adapt to social and environmental stresses?
The different social positions are then defined as people belonging to the Scheduled Caste (SC) or Other Backward Caste (OBC). SC people are, historically, considered to be on the lowest step of the social ladder. This group was previously known as the Dalit or untouchables. The OBC people are belonging to the lowest caste, but are considered to be one step above the SC people.
Furthermore, a distinction in social position is made between various farm sizes. A comparison is made between the adaptation of small, marginal and medium sized farmers. The definition of the 2001 census is used. A marginal farmer has up to 2.5 acres of land. A small farmer is defined as having between 2.5 to 5 acres. More than 5 acres is considered as a medium sized farmer.
Environmental stress is defined as the pressure of (changing) natural circumstances on the livelihood of human beings. Social stress is defined here, mainly in the light of industrialisation and modernisation, as the pressure of (changing) socially induced circumstances on the livelihoods of human beings.
The problem statement is divided into four sub-questions:
1. What environmental and industrial stresses are the farmers in TRP coping with and what are the consequences of these stresses?
2. In what way are the farmers of TRP adapting to these stresses?
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1.1.2 Conceptual schema
1.2
Social and scientific relevance
A lot has been written on the effect of environmental and industrial stress to the agricultural sector. The effects of these stresses are well documented and can be found through various sources. The effect the industry and the environment have on local farmers in India has not been examined that often.
New about this research might be its approach. The perspective of the issues of farmers on the local scale is linked to what is happening or has happened on the bigger scale. The farmers of TRP are providing an excellent example on the lower level. The influence of various changes in politics and the environment are visible in the rural landscape of TRP.
India is a new big player in the global economy. The country is changing rapidly. In order to understand the problems that coincides with an emerging economy it is important to study its effects. Especially for policy makers the local level should not be forgotten. Studies like this could help provide policy makers with a better view on what effects their choices have.
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1.3
Thesis outline
In the next chapter an overview will be given of the empirical framework and leading theories that can be linked to the case study of TRP. In chapter 3 the used methodology will be explained, the research design is outlined and the limitations of doing research in India will be given. Then, in chapter 4 and 5, the focus will be on the farmers themselves, analysing the questionnaires and placing it in its historical context. The next chapter will give food for thought as I will provide some discussion points and possibilities for further research. Finally, the conclusion will be given in chapter 7.
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2
Framework
This chapter will place the research in the bigger picture. First, a framework will be given based on empirical findings. This framework or typology is used throughout the thesis. Next, the main subjects are explained as of how they are presented in the scientific literature.
2.1
Empirical framework
The Indian agricultural sector is mainly based on the production of rice. Especially in the Cauvery River Delta the production of rice is much prevalent. Most of the farmers in this research are producing rice. Some also produce other products, mostly next to the cultivation of rice. In the surroundings of TRP the production of groundnuts, gingerly or black- and red gram is also widely found.
The farmers in the surroundings can roughly be divided into four categories considering their way of production and adaptation to environmental stresses. These categories include: organic farmers, inorganic or mechanizing farmers, integrated farmers and non-active farmers. In this chapter an overview will be given of this typology. The following paragraphs will give a more detailed description of the variety of farmers in TRP.
2.1.1 Inorganic- or conventional farmers
Even though organic farming is generating more and more support, the majority of farmers is still using inorganic or chemical fertilisers. Most farmers try to use as much organic manure as possible but because of a lack of water, increasing droughts and decreasing availability of organic fertilisers farmers see themselves forced to use chemicals.
Chemical fertilisers will generate more yield. For a farmer in despair because of environmental degradation and increasing labour costs the choice for chemical fertilisers is a logic result. As Darnhofer (2005) explains; a farmer is, just like any other human being, conducting neo-classical economics. He is trying to lower the costs as much as possible in order to get the highest possible income. In Europe a farmer would start modernising in order to lower the costs. In India the same is happening. Most farmers use tractors nowadays. Some use harvesting machines since two years. Others changed the way of plantation.
The government of Puducherry is providing farmers with fertilisers like zinc sulphate at 50% subsidy. They provide the farmers with tractors at 50% of the normal rate and will give cheap loans to finance the costs (Government of Puducherry, 2013).
16 Out of the 28 respondents about 18 mainly use chemical fertilisers. Most of them use a combination of chemicals and organics. There are only a few who do not use organic fertilisers at all. The main chemicals used are Di-ammonium Phosphate (DAP) and Urea. DAP is used as plant feed and as a fertiliser (Patnaik, 2003).
It is important to note that the farmers here categorised as inorganic are farmers that predominantly use chemicals. Most of the farmers use a combination of organic manure and chemical fertilisers.
2.1.2 Organic farmers
The invention of the chemical fertilizer spread all around the world about 150 years ago. In combination with the needed natural resources the later invented synthetic fertilisers created an enormous increase in yield. At the end of the 1990s researchers came to the conclusion that these fertilisers also create environmental problems like water pollution and increased soil deterioration (Goudie, 2006). All around the world a growing attention to organic farming arose. Also in India the attention to more sustainable ways of conducting agriculture is gaining terrain. This is partially owed to the recently departed farmer scientist G. Nammazhvar. Nammazhvar, born in Tanjavur, Tamil Nadu, was known as an advocate of organic farming and was often involved in various protests against the use of pesticides and chemicals. He resigned for his government job in 1969, at the height of the Green Revolution, when he had to promote chemicals and pesticides to farmers who neither had cash nor natural resources (Karthick, 2013). Various respondents mentioned his name as to why they are converting back to organic farming.
A growing attention to organic farming was noted during the research. Out of the total of 28 respondents, seven farmers indicated that they mainly use organic ways of fertilising their soil in contrary to the declining amount of organic manure available due to the decrease of cattle. A lot of cattle got hit by trains or lorries because of the completion of the port. As the wife of a farmer in Keezha Vanjur said:
“We used to have a lot of cattle. We used the cow dung to fertilize our paddy field. A lot of our cattle got hit by trains. This made it impossible to fertilize our land in an organic way. Nowadays we don’t even have enough cattle for celebrations and festivities.”
17 Organic farming seems to become increasingly popular despite the decrease of cattle. Although the number of organic farmers seems somewhat higher among OBC farmers, both SC as well as OBC farmers convert to organic ways of fertilising their land with a decreasing yield as result. Farmers seem to be concerned about the future of their soil, even though the land of most scheduled caste farmers is hired.
The government has various schemes to promote biological farming. Bio fertilisers are provided by the state government at subsidised costs. SC farmers can get bio fertilisers like Neem oil, Neem cake or enriched compost for free. Other farmers can get these fertilisers at 75% subsidy (Government of Puducherry, 2013).
It is important to note that the farmers here categorised as organic are the farmers that predominantly use organic manures. Most of the farmers use a combination of organic manure and chemical fertilisers.
2.1.3 Integrated farming
A fairly uncommon group of farmers are the integrated farmers. Integrated farming is a way of saving resources by trying to aim at acceptable profits by sustainably using the environment so that the negative effects of conventional farming are reduced. The goal is to create a sustainable livelihood with enough income in present and future without harming the environment (Rota, 2010). Integrated farming is therefore a variety to organic farming. Integrated farmers try to be as self-sufficient as possible. An integrated farmer has its own cattle, his own water supply, and his own manure and tries to diversify its products. In India the diversification of products usually means that the farmer is not only focussed on producing as much rice as possible. Also other crops like mango trees, neem trees and various other species are cultivated. Usually the farmer has built its own water tank to store rain water and a diversified array of cattle like goose, buffaloes, dogs, chickens and many others surround the place.
The integrated farmers surrounding TRP seem quite successful. Although their production lies behind the conventional chemical farmers, they usually have enough yield for their own use throughout the year and save some money out of the profit they earn on the remaining rice.
2.1.4 Non-active farmers
Plummeting profits and lower production rates are the direct result of the harsh climate and the consequences of industrialisation in India. A big group of farmers stop doing agriculture
18 because it is not profitable enough. Out of the 28 respondents thirteen farmers quit doing agriculture at all. Some stopped even before the tsunami; others tried after the tsunami but came to the conclusion that the work was too hard and the income too low. This process is also known as regrounding. This will be further explained in the next paragraph. This last category encompasses both organic and inorganic farmers.
2.2
Theoretical framework
The agrarian crisis, the environmental stress, industrialisation and all other aspects discussed in this thesis are embedded in a wider theoretical framework. In this paragraph the four concepts of adaptation, sustainable livelihood, caste position and the bigger perspective of the effect of industrialisation to agriculture will be explained by discussing various leading theories.
2.2.1
Adaptation/Adaptive capacity and vulnerabilityAccording to a report published by the UN, adaptation is a process through which societies make themselves better able to cope with an uncertain future (UNFCCC, 2007). Although much of the literature about adaptation is focused on climate change, it is important to note that this definition is not suggesting anything about climate change or environmental stress at all. This notion is very important in the light of the subject of this thesis as the focus will lie on the adaptation to the uncertainty of the future both environmentally as well as economically.
Almost every society is in one way or another vulnerable to the environment. Some societies are more vulnerable than others. The adaptive capacity of a society is very much in line with the coping strategies of a country. Still much of the adaptation policies are organised on the level of the state. As there are severe differences between the economic positions of nation-states, the adaptive capacity also severely differs around the world. The vulnerability of individuals to stresses is very much dependent on the availability of resources and the accessibility to these resources at the needed time. The concept of vulnerability is therefore socially constructed and very much influenced by economic dynamics and institutions (Adger et al., 2003). Poor societies are the most vulnerable to environmental hazards as they do not have the social, technological and financial capacity to adapt to these hazards (UNPCCC, 2007). The vulnerability of a society is usually based on the physical location and the ability to adapt to stresses of its physical location. An adaptive system may need to reduce its dependence on vulnerable areas. This can be accomplished in
19 various ways like changing crop varieties, avoiding building settlements and infrastructure in vulnerable areas (like is done by implementing the CRZ as discussed in 5.2.2) or by strengthening existing societies (Adger et al., 2003).
Changing the crop varieties is a way of reforming and adapting to modernisation, using it in order to get a higher yield and reinforce the structure of society. The Green Revolution in India generated a bigger income and at the same time changed the traditions and customs the Indian farmer was used to. According to Ghai and Vivian (1992, cited in Adams, 2009) sustainable development needs local communities to enjoy a certain autonomy, have control over the needed resources, and, in some cases, they need to be provided with financial and technical support.
Without a doubt, people living in marginalised areas are most vulnerable to environmental stress, but different scholars suggest a greater adaptive capacity of people in developing countries. Indigenous knowledge, or local knowledge, is crucial in understanding the adaptive capacity of a group. Mainstream development thinking in the 1970s gives an important role to the ideas and systems local people invented. In agriculture these include diverse crop varieties, diverse cropping systems and integrated management of crops and livestock. Interestingly, people in highly variable environments tend to be more flexible and be more self-reliant. Therefore, the people at highest risk are seen to have a high degree of adaptation to local environmental change (Adams, 2009). This idea can be linked to the theory Lipton (2006) is discussing in his article on eradicating poverty through small scale farmers. According to Lipton, the smaller farm has a higher adaptive capacity as it is generating a bigger yield per hectare compared to its larger neighbours due to labour intensive farming.
The degree of adaptation success of farmers is very much reliant on a supportive institutional environment created by the government (Adams, 2009). This counts especially to the agricultural sector where the forces of the globalising economy create immense price competition. Adams describes in his book the situation of Nigerian farmers being affected by the completion of a river dam. After the dam was built, the Nigerian government provided the farmers with new agricultural technology like water pumps and tube wells. Some communities were able to adapt their agriculture and even enhance their livelihoods. The role of the government is very important (Adams, 2009). About the same story can be told for the farmers in Tamil Nadu where an upstream dam has been built in order to provide Karnataka with sufficient drinking and irrigation water. Due to a lack of rains and a decrease
20 in river water the downstream farmers in Tamil Nadu and Puducherry suffered from severe droughts and decreasing yields. The role of the government in Tamil Nadu and the adaptive capacity of Indian farmers will be explained in the next chapters.
The choice of adaptation to environmental and industrial stress can broadly be categorised in three categories: deepening, broadening and regrounding (van der Ploeg et al, 2002 cited in Darnhofer, 2005). Darnhofer explains these categories by giving examples of Austrian conventional and organic farmers. The differences between Austrian farmers and Indian farmers are numerous, but a lot of comparisons can be made.
Deepening activities include the transformation, expanding and/or redirecting of
agricultural activities to other actors in order to deliver products with a higher value-added per unit (van der Ploeg et al. as cited in Darnhofer, 2005). Deepening of agricultural activities is very much alive in western farms where on-farm processing is shortening the link between production and consumption. The link between the Indian producer and consumer already is very short. Many farmers produce for their own consumption or sell their products to the local market. Therefore, deepening activities in India include the concept of integrated farming, where the farmer not only focuses on the production of rice, but also has its own cattle, as explained in the previous paragraph. This makes the farmer less reliant on the provisioning of water, manure and pesticides as this is produced on the farm itself.
The process of broadening is not seen much. Broadening is when new non-agricultural activities such as agro-tourism, management of landscape and nature or energy production or delivery of different services, add value to the produced crops (Darnhofer, 2005). As far as this research goes, there are no examples of agro-tourism. There are farmers that build biogas plantations, but this is not seen among the smaller farmers of TRP. The production of manure is too low in order to provide both the land and a biogas installation, although various studies are done on the production of biogas in other states (see Raha, Mahanta and Clarke, 2014, for a study on biogas plants in the northern state of Assam) .
The final way of adapting to environmental and industrial stress is the process of
regrounding. In this strategy, farm resources are restructured by redeploying human
resources or by re-using material resources on the farm (van der Ploeg 2000 cited in Darnhofer, 2005). The switch towards another income source is often made. Many farmers in TRP quit farming completely and start generating an income outside of agriculture. More about this will be explained in chapter four and five.
21 Although not many will make a link between the resource curse and adaptation strategies of poor people, I would like to emphasize and explain the idea of the resource curse here, as it is crucial to understand some discussion points I will make in chapter 6.
The resource curse or paradox of plenty is the surprising fact that many states that are abundant in natural resources are tended to grow slower than economies without these resources. Economies with the highest export of raw natural resources intend to have a lower GDP growth than economies with a low export of raw natural resources (Sachs and Warner, 1997). A distinction is made between countries that are natural resource dependent and countries that are endowed with resources, where the countries endowed with resources still have normal growth rates, but the countries dependent on natural resources are inflicted with the resource curse (Ding and Field, 2004).
The idea is that being a resource rich country leads to sloth and countries lacking the resources are forced to build up their economy in a completely different and diverse way. According to different scholars, enduring growth can be accomplished by changing a society from a natural resource exporter to a manufacturing economy and thus diversify the division of labour. It is said that the abundance or discovery of natural resources will slow down an economy its creativeness and diversification of labour. This concept is also known as the Dutch Disease (Sachs and Warner, 1997).
In my discussion in chapter 6 I will plea that the paradox of plenty can also be applied to the micro-scale. I will state that the farmers abundant in income are less adaptive than the farmers in biggest despair. This is also in line with the arguments of Lipton about the differences in productivity between smaller and bigger farms.
2.2.2
Sustainable livelihoodLasting and enduring poverty reduction is at the centre of the sustainable livelihood approach. According to sustainable livelihood (SL) literature, it is important to reduce poverty without forgetting the environmental issues in order to retain a certain level of prosperity.
Rural households with different backgrounds and different environmental conditions create a livelihood in a different way. The way in which these people create a livelihood is very much influenced by their vulnerability to trends in the economy, politics or technology but also to shocks like epidemics or natural disasters. Taking into account seasonal changes like prices and employment opportunities the vulnerability in some areas is much higher than in others (IFAD.org, n.d.). The concept of SL can be divided into three main concepts:
22 capabilities, equity and sustainability. A livelihood can be defined as gaining a living; getting enough money or resources in order to provide you and your family with the basic needs. Capabilities (i) enable a livelihood to be gained. Equity (ii) can be divided into two aspects; equity in assets or equity in access. The latter is the fundamental and most important in creating a sustainable livelihood. The concept of sustainability (iii) is much discussed and can be defined as the conscious use of resources in order to sustain a livelihood for future generations (Chambers and Conway, 1991). According to the IFAD the SL approach has seven guiding principles: (i) people centred, the people themselves participate actively, (ii) holistic, in a way that is acknowledges that there are many actors involved, (iii) dynamic, understanding what influences there are on the dynamic nature of livelihoods, (iv) build on strengths, by not focussing on their needs but on what they themselves perceive as their strengths, (v) promote micro-macro links, discussing and testing the influence of institutional policies and strategies, (vi) partnership between the private and public sector and last but not least, (vii) the aim for sustainability (Ifad.org, n.d.). Especially principle (v) is important in this research as the influence of government policies will be discussed in detail in chapters 4 and 5.
The Brundtland report of 1987 is clear in its stance on agriculture. The report was one of the first official documents, after the World Conservation Strategy of 1980, to talk about the concept of green or sustainable development (Adams, 2009). According to the report, agricultural development is not only about increasing food supplies and decreasing the dependence on food imports. The long chain of employers and employees will benefit from a sound agricultural sector. The report writes:
…[W]hen countries with untapped agricultural resources provide food by importing more, they are effectively importing unemployment. By the same token, countries that are subsidizing food exports are increasing unemployment in food-importing countries. This marginalizes people, and marginalized people are forced to destroy the resource base to survive. Shifting production to food-deficit countries and to the resource-poor farmers within those countries is a way of securing sustainable livelihoods. (Brundtland Report, 1987, p. 93)
The report emphasises a point sometimes forgotten. The chain of people reliant on the agricultural sector is a long one. Not only is the farmer himself provided with an income,
23 also the employees are provided with a livelihood. These labourers can then provide their children with education so they provide themselves with a livelihood in the future.
The environmental consequences of not helping farmers financially will lead to the use of production increasing methods like chemical fertilisers or pesticides, depleting the soil and spoiling opportunities for future generations.
The report explains that the pressure on resources increases when people lack alternatives. It is therefore important that development policy is focussed on offering people more options for earning a sustainable livelihood, particularly for households under ecological stress. The report therefore advices helping farmers to shift to a wider range of crops, but also helping them with advice, equipment, and marketing assistance (Brundtland et al., 1987).
According to the report there is a special challenge for agricultural researchers. Agricultural technology could provide farmer households with a more stable, uniform, and resource-rich soil and ample water supply. A special emphasis is made to regions with unreliable rainfall and poorer soils; these regions are unsuitable to Green Revolution technologies (Brundtland et al, 1987). With Green Revolution technologies the report means the implementation and use of High Yielding Varieties (HYV). The use of HYV does not provide a farmer with any income if the natural resources needed to grow the crop are not provided. It therefore is crucial to provide farmers with the needed equipment in order to get a sustainable livelihood.
2.2.3 Caste position
The caste system, although officially illegal, is still very much alive in India. Officially, the discrimination against lower castes is prohibited and punishable, but caste certificates still exist and play a role in getting access to (free) public services like schools, but also to get subsidies on fertilisers or pesticides.
The caste system used to be a complicated way of stratifying the social structures of the Indian society into employment positions. The caste system will not be explained here in detail as it encompasses too many aspects; it is assumed that the reader knows the basics of the caste system. As the caste system is abolished, the government implemented a new way of making a distinction between the socially disadvantaged groups and the more advantaged groups. The classification used by the government is also used in this thesis. The scheduled castes (SC) and scheduled tribes (ST) are considered to be the most deprived groups, after
24 which follows the Other Backward Classes (OBC or BC) which is an aggregation of what was known as the lowest caste groups.
What most contemporary studies agree on is that the SC, ST and OBC still tend to be worse off than the forward groups in terms of consumption, income, education, occupation and other development indices. According to the National Council for Applied Economic Research in India, still about one third of the differences in income can be accounted to caste discrimination. A study of A. Zacharias (2011) on caste stratification and wealth inequality in India, using two sets of data from the All India Debt and Investment Survey from 1991-92 and 2002-03, shows that the lower caste positions still have a substantially lower wealth compared to the forward castes. Interesting is that especially the OBC and non-Hindus occupy the middle class positions at the moment. One of the other findings in his study is that there is an emergence of a so called ‗creamy layer‘ or relatively well-off group among the disadvantaged groups, especially among people belonging to the ST.
This better off group is relatively poorly studied, although the research of Bal and Judge (2010) is one among others that attempted to study the innovations, entrepreneurship and development of SC groups. Their study focuses on two cities in Punjab. They conclude that this group of people experience social, economic and political mobility through trade and business. They explain that the entrepreneurship used to be in the hands of the forward castes but in contemporary India the tides are turning. The SC people studied in Jalandhar and Amritsar seem to diversify their traditional caste occupations and venture an increasing amount of businesses and trades, although still big differences persist between rural and urban SC groups.
Even though the OBC and forward caste groups are still economically, socially and politically better off, the SC group seems to be increasingly entrepreneurial and a small group of better off is emerging. The road towards complete eradication of the caste system is a long one, but there are signs that the system is crumbling down.
2.2.4 The government reaction to globalisation: Subsidies, restrictions and protectionism
Subsidies and incentives on agriculture, as known in almost every country, are the result of a complex set of variables. Not only industrialisation is affecting the agricultural sector, issues like globalisation and market liberalisation leads to inevitable protection of the farmer, if the state wants to be self-sufficient in its food production. The discussion of protectionism is part of a bigger discourse; that of neo liberalism and globalisation.
25 After the Second World War many countries became independent of their colonial ruler. At the same time, the world was becoming increasingly connected and globalised. Various development paths were chosen in the succeeding decades of the Second World War. The tendency of the West in the 1980s was that of market liberalisation and small governments. Some countries adopted this policy like the Asian Tigers. Others, like many Latin American countries, followed the path of protectionism. Various protectionist policies can be thought of, like import quotas, subsidies or tariffs.
The United States, the number one propagator of liberal market policies, used to have a very different strategy than what we are used of it today. Not that long ago, when the economy of the US was comparable with that of a developing country, the interventionist and industrial policy measures were at its heyday. It was the UK that perfected laissez-faire industrial policies in the 1870s which meant low barriers on the flow of goods, capital and labour. Tremendous wealth followed and the US adopted this way of thinking. It was of short duration, as already during the 1930s the US and UK implemented trade tariffs in response to the instability of the economy and politics. The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade was implemented after the Second World War in order to protect the national economy and regulate international trade (Chang, 2003).
Through the IMF, World Bank and free-trade promoters like Sachs and Bhagwati the idea of market liberalisation was imposed to third world countries. It turned out that many countries grew faster before they abandoned industrial policy tools than they did after (Lind, 2003). At the same time, the world kept globalising and the increasing competition as result of the neo liberal policies had consequences to the agricultural sector and in some cases even to food security.
The years of economic liberalisation in India have had far reaching consequences to the agriculture of today. During the liberalisation periods many of the restrictions to import agricultural products were removed. This led to the decrease of prices and made cultivation of various agricultural products unprofitable as the competition was too big. The implemented removal of quantitative restrictions by the WTO led to a crash in the prices of food grains. A combination of a cutback in agricultural subsidies, a lack of cheap agricultural loans and a declining investment in the agricultural sector eventually led to what we now call the Indian agrarian crisis (Aerthayil, 2008).
It is important, in order to stay self-sufficient, to protect the own farmers with subsidies and import restrictions. The competition between western farmers, who benefit
26 from high levels of subsidies, and local Indian farmers, is unfair. In order to protect the Indian farmer and its livelihood subsidies are needed as a result of the rising costs of cultivation (Aerthayil, 2008).
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3
Methodology
A social researcher has to take into account many aspects in order to get a reliable outcome. Social research, contrary to the natural sciences, cannot be conducted in the setting of a laboratory and is always influenced by the researcher‘s subjective interpretations of reality (Bryman, 2008). In order to minimize research biases, certain guidelines have to be taken into account.
This chapter will give an overview of how the research is conducted, what research design is chosen, which methods are used in order to get the data, what is done to prevent biases and what limitations there are in doing a short intercultural research.
3.1
Research design
The research conducted for this thesis can be best seen as an exemplary case study. A case study is characterised by the intensive examination of the setting of a community or organisation (Bryman, 2008). An exemplary case is characterised by a situation that is unusual and of general public interest and the issues described are of national importance (Yin, 2009). The limited time provided to do the research narrows down the possible research designs. The case study design described here is generating the most data during a short period of time because an intensive all-encompassing research is impossible.
The case of TRP is an exemplary one because these farmers are very directly inflicted by both the effects of industrialisation and environmental stresses. The area is located in an area where water scarcity is everyday talk and industrialisation in all its facets is flourishing. It is assumed that this process holds true for the rest of South India. It exemplifies a problem in a broader category of which TRP is part (Bryman, 2008).
The research has some aspects of a comparative design as is chosen for four villages. Two of which are located near the port, two of which are located somewhat further away from the port. Both villages also differ in social composition. Keezhayur and Melayur are predominantly SC villages. Keezha Vanjur and Vadaka Vanjur are predominantly OBC. Although the number of respondents is too low, there has been tried to give some preliminary results on the differences between SC and OBC farmers and their way of adaptation.
The research its epistemology is interpretivism, as the study of the social world is fundamentally different from that of the natural science. Supporters of interpretivism state that the social science requires a different research procedure than that of the natural
28 sciences, which can be seen as a positivist epistemological standpoint. The interpretivist epistemology is connected to a constructionist ontological position. Followers of constructionism do not see the social world as objective, but instead as socially constructed. Social phenomenon are socially constructed and therefore it should be tried to be interpreted and understood by the researcher instead of being measured. (Bryman, 2008). The science of international development studies is very much based on the study of humans and therefore an interpretivist way of researching is desirable.
3.1.1 Location
Tirumalairayanpattinam, TR-pattinam or simply TRP is located just south of Karaikal. Karaikal is located in the State of Puducherry, named after the French town of Puducherry, and was earlier known as Union Territory. Karaikal, just like Puducherry, used to be a French colony; therefore the state is still working with the concept of a commune, which is the French word for town. The entire commune of TRP has about 20,000 inhabitants (Police.pondicherry.gov.in, n.d.). It consists of various villages of which four are chosen: Melayur and Keezhayur in the north and Vadaka Vanjur and Keezha Vanjur in the south. The former two villages are SC dominated; the latter two are OBC dominated villages. Each village consists of an estimated 200 to 250 households according to the panchayat members, except for Melayur which counts approximately 100 to 150 households. As seen on the map on the first pages of this thesis, the MARG Karaikal Port is located at the bottom right of the figure. The East Coast road is seen here as the 45A or 49, indicated in yellow.
The villages are chosen in order to be able to compare two villages that are directly influenced by the port, and two villages that are less affected by industrial stresses. Furthermore, two SC villages can be compared with two OBC villages.
3.1.2 Research population
The research population consists of farmers surrounding TRP. The unit of analysis are therefore the farmer households. Because the agricultural sector in the surroundings of Karaikal is much from flourishing, it was hard to find enough farmers to get a good representative sample. Multiple villages were chosen in order to get more respondents. Some of which are better represented than others. Both Melayur and Keezhayur are underrepresented compared with the other two. Both villages are relatively better off in terms of water availability and pollution. After conducting approximately ten questionnaires a general idea of how these villages are adapting to environmental and industrial stresses
29 was conceived. The villages of Vadaka Vanjur and Keezha Vanjur are much more interesting as these are the villages dealing with the biggest stresses. In order to better understand the adaptation to both types of stresses, more questionnaires were conducted here. The limited time available forced to make this decision. In table 1, a frequency table is given, showing the amount of respondents, the percentage of respondents still cultivating, the predominant caste and the way of fertilising. As can be seen, 100% of the respondents in both Keezhayur and Melayur are still cultivating. The other two villages are affected by water scarcity and industrialisation the most and have a much lower rate of cultivating farmers.
TABEL 1 | FREQUENCY TABEL WITH SOME OF THE RESULTS OF THE QUESTIONNAIRE
According to the Agricultural Census about 99 million holdings were defined as marginal or small out of the total of 121 million agricultural holdings in 2001. This group of farmers therefore accounts for more than 80% of the total households (Mahendra Dev, 2012). Most of the farmers in TRP are considered as marginal or small farmers. It can be seen that 85.73% of the respondents is a marginal or small farmer. This is in line with the national average. In figure 1 the dispersion of marginal, small and medium farmers among the respondents is shown.
3.2
Research methods
Being a human geographer in the field of international development studies, which has much Number of respondents Percentage of respondents still cultivating Predominant caste Number of organic farmers Number of inorganic farmers Number of integrated farmers Keezhayur 5 100% SC 1 3 1 Melayur 7 100% SC 1 6 0 Keezha Vanjur 11 18% OBC 5 4 2 Vadaka Vanjur 5 20% OBC 0 5 0 Total 28 13 7 18 3
30 overlap with the field of anthropology, the ethnographic method is providing a good framework. The typical ethnographic research requires a certain amount of time in order to get enough and reliable observations, interviews and impressions. Because of the limited time spent in the villages, this research is not a typical ethnographic research although observations, interviews and impressions play an important role in the findings.
Next to the field work, a range of literature is used complementing the limited research data.
3.2.1 Data collection
The research was started by doing various open interviews in the surrounding villages in order to get an idea of the biggest issues and problems. Based on these open interviews a questionnaire was made.
Most of the data is based on conducting semi-structured interviews. The farmers were presented with a set of 33 questions concerning the way he or she is feeling about and adapting to the various environmental stresses. The questionnaire was mainly used as a guideline to assure that all the aspects were covered. It was often the case that after asking the question a long, sometimes emotional story erupted. These stories contained valuable information for the research.
3.2.2 Sampling method
In development countries or emerging economies it is often needed to improvise a sampling frame in order to get a suitable random sample because of the lack of a proper frame. It may be incomplete or out of date (Desai and Potter, 2006). It is hard to get a good view of where farmers are located in India, especially in a short period of time. For this reason a method of random sampling was not possible. Therefore was chosen for the snowball sampling method. A snowball sample consists of choosing the respondents by making initial contact with a small group of farmers that are relevant to the research in order to get in contact with others (Bryman, 2008). Starting out with speaking to a panchayat member of TRP, he explained where to find the land owners and through them the other respondents were chosen. This method of snowball sampling thus allowed for the collection of respondents who were relevant for the research. On the other hand is it possible that a specific group of farmer is left out of the research. If a specific farmer is not known by the panchayat member he is unlikely to be included in the research.
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3.2.3 Operationalization
At first a couple of questions related to the farm size and type of land were asked. Then the concept of adaptation was operationalized by asking the way of fertilisation, if the farmer changed the type of crop he produced, the water source used and if he was mechanising or not. The way in which his or her successfulness in adapting was measured was by asking their production and number of yields per year.
Furthermore, the influence of environmental stresses was asked directly to the farmers by asking them what stresses they perceived and what issues they found most bothersome. The same has been done with industrial stresses. Direct questions concerning the labour wages and land values were also asked.
The questionnaire is added in the appendix.
3.3
Social research criteria
A good research has to cope with questions of reliability and validity. In this paragraph I explain how this research suffices the social research criteria.
3.3.1 Reliability
As stated earlier, the research has been conducted in the real world setting. This means that the replicability or external reliability is always weak. In order to reproduce the research the exact same settings are needed. As the port is still developing, the environmental circumstances are changing and the Indian economy is growing, the variables are changing constantly.
The internal reliability of the research is strong as there is only one observer. There is no question of inter-observer variability. However, the language barrier could have threatened the internal reliability. In the research a translator had to be used between the respondent and the interviewer. It is possible that different interpretations have influenced the results.
3.3.2 Validity
The internal validity of ethnographic research is usually strong because of a prolonged participation in the social life of the research group (Bryman, 2008). The respondents could explain their answers clearly and if answers were unclear, further explanation could be asked. For this reason it is likely that the finding actually represent the ideas of the respondent and the causal relations are right. In the case of this research the time was limited and therefore questions the internal validity.
32 In terms of external validity a case study research raises concerns. The single case of TRP cannot be generalised to the entire Indian farming population. Especially because the case of researched for this thesis is an extreme one. The farmers in TRP are dealing with the influences of the biggest private port in India. Environmentally, the villages are among the most affected because of their location at the end of the canal system. The case of TRP therefore cannot be generalised to the entire Indian farmer population and it is questionable if the sample can even be generalised to the farming population of TRP because of the low number of respondents.
3.4
Limitations
It is important to note that the research was conducted in a short period of four weeks. Therefore the results might not be reliable. Various aspects might have influenced the outcome and questions the reliability of the results.
Due to the short visit, it has been very complicated to generate enough data in order to give binding conclusions. The independent variables caste (or social position), environmental stress and industrial stress are all influencing the way of adaptation. These variables are parallel and might influence each other, therefore the influence of one particular variable cannot be measured or found. It is impossible to provide the reader with an answer on which of the independent variables is influencing the agricultural sector the most. The results in this thesis therefore will be highly interpretative and further research might give a decisive answer.
Working with a translator leads inevitably to difficulties as a translator will have its own interpretation of what the respondent explains. The differences between the caste positions of the translator and the respondent might lead to a hierarchy which can lead to wishful answering. Next to that, the way of interviewing in India is completely different from what I was used to. Often the entire room was filled with curious villagers and children. I often had the idea that the respondent was helped in answering his questions by the other farmers leading to a bias in the answer. Many of the respondents were uneducated.
3.1.1 The ethics of doing social science research in India
A researcher should always be as objective as possible. Being objective as a Western researcher in a country with a different culture requires a different approach. A researcher has to be familiar with the cultural habits and traditions of the country in which the research is done. It is evident that cultural differences will lead to misunderstandings and biased
33 results. The idea of family relations, poverty or politics we have differs from that of the respondent. Next to that, participants are often unfamiliar with the way the research is conducted and will not know how to fill in a questionnaire (Nuffieldbioethics.org, 2014).
When doing research in a different culture it is essential to understand both their own framework of thinking, and the implications of different mind-sets and environments in which research may have been carried out.
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4
The effects of environmental stresses
The contemporary Indian farmer is coping with declining rains, increasingly unpredictable monsoons, high temperatures, increasing salinity, droughts, and floods. These environmental stresses have consequences to both social as well as environmental aspects and result in changes on various levels of analysis. On the lower level farmers adapt in various ways to these stresses by changing to other crops or varieties, using different sources of water or trying out other ways of cultivation and fertilization. On the higher national level the failing agricultural sector raises questions about India its food security.
In this chapter an overview will be given of the background of the agrarian crisis in the light of the Green Revolution in paragraph 4.1. The Green Revolution encompasses many different aspects as the modernisation of the farmland was not only happening in India, but was occurring all around the world. The Green Revolution technology is of considerable importance to the Indian agricultural landscape of today. In paragraph 4.2 an explanation will be given of how farmers in Karaikal are adapting to environmental stresses and what are the causes and results are of the growing difficulties farmers have in generating an income. All the results are based on the research conducted in April and May of 2014. The increasing difficulties in producing crops will generate both social- and environmental issues.
4.1
The Green Revolution
Jawaharlal Nehru was shocked when he found his fellow Indians in hunger dying on the streets of Calcutta in 1943. Post-independence India was a country of famine. Right after independence the focus of the Indian government on large scale industrialisation led to growing awareness of the need for larger crop production per acre (Saha, 2013). The idea of the Green Revolution was born.
The eradication of hunger and poverty became one of the biggest priorities of the Indian government. The economic position of the country during the 1960s reached its worst point since independence. India became heavily dependent on the import of food, mainly from the USA. During the Cold War the import prices of food were highly politically loaded as Nehru did neither choose the side of the West nor the side of Soviet Union. As widespread famine was predicted by many scholars, India had to change from a country dependent on import to a country that was self-sufficient in its food production. The amount of arable land had already reached its peak which made it impossible to generate more farmland. Various
35 researchers have shown that small scale farmers were more productive than the larger ones. The government therefore tried to redistribute the existing farmland from bigger farmers among the landless or small scale farmers (Dasgupta, 1977). The average size of a farm therefore declined from 2.3 hectares in 1970 to 1.37 hectares in 2000. The average size of a farm therefore declined from 2.3 hectares in 1970 to 1.37 hectares in 2000, causing small and marginal farmers to account for about 80% of the total farmland. Nevertheless, the share in production of small and marginal farmers accounts for about 44% of the total agricultural area. These inequalities are well recognized by the government and the role of the small farmer in reducing poverty is researched by different scholars (see Mahendra Dev, 2012 and Lipton, 2006). Poverty reduction through GDP growth originating from agriculture is proving to be twice as effective as growth outside the agricultural sector (WDR, 2008 in Mahendra Dev, 2012, p. 2).
As the food surplus generated by distributing the land were not enough to eradicate hunger in India, the High Yielding Variety Seed Program (HVP) or High Yielding Variety
Box 1 | Different types of land holdings
India has a complicated set of types of land holdings. A farmer is not automatically owner of the land. This box gives an explanation of the various types of land holdings:
- Owned land
Owned land, as the word says, is land owned by the farmer itself. Usually the land already belongs to the family for generations. Most of the farmers who own land belong to the agricultural caste which is one of the Backward Castes.
- Ceiling land
Ceiling land is land given by the government to landless poor under the Urban Land Ceiling Act of 1976. The land is taken from big land owners in order to improve productivity and provide landless farmers, usually SC farmers, with an income. This act fits into the idea of small farmers being more productive.
- Temple land
Temple land is land owned by the local temple and leased to nearby farmers, usually farmers belonging to SC. Most often farmers have to pay the temple a part of their yield as kind payments. The temple often has the availability of a water tank which the farmer can use.
- Leased land
Leased land is land owned by a farmer, mostly leased out to people belonging to SC caste. Payments are given both in kind payments as well as in money.
36 (HYV) was implemented. By introducing hybrid seeds from Mexico and the Philippines, the government tried to increase the yield of the farmers (Chakravarti, 1973). A growing prosperity among farmers, the extermination of hunger, and an increasing self-sufficiency in the production of food grains were expected. India was fighting against the enormous increase in demand for food as a result of the increase in population and its harsh climate. It was expected that an increase in production would eventually help to solve most of India its biggest problems like poverty, unemployment, maldistribution of resources, and so on (Dasgupta, 1977).
The Green Revolution can be divided into three phases. The first phase was characterised by optimism and an increase in food production from 72 million tons to 108 million tons between 1966 and 1971. The import of food declined from 10 million tons to 2 million tons in this same period. But the optimism was of short duration. The high yield figures of this period were the result of unusually favourable weather. The vulnerability of the agricultural sector to weather circumstances in India was exposed. The food production was very much reliable on the weather conditions in a year (Dasgupta, 1977).
The period between 1972 and 1975 can be seen as the second phase of the Green Revolution which was characterised by unfavourable weather conditions. The production of food declined consistently from 108 million tons to 101 tons and the government therefore was forced to import more food again. The import increased from 0.45 million tons in 1972 to 7.41 million tons in 1975. The final phase of the Green Revolution was characterised by renewed optimism as production figures started to rise again (Dasgupta, 1977). The awareness of the dependence of a favourable monsoon was very much alive. A high yielding variety without the right weather conditions would not generate a bigger yield.
The new hybrid seed would not grow without the implementation of the right incentives. A farmer had to change its complete way of farming as the new seed needed different attention. The Green Revolution encompassed a complete package of inputs and agricultural practices. Next to the new seeds, the farmer needed to use fertilisers and pesticides, change the period of cropping and maintain a correct amount of water in his field. The increase in yield would not be achieved without the correct inputs. Therefore education and the provisioning of information to the farmers was very important (Dasgupta, 1977). During the Green Revolution the inequality between marginal and small farmers and medium or large farmers increased because essential information reached the bigger farmers more easily (Chakravarti, 1973). One of the most important aspects of the Green Revolution
37 therefore was the distribution of information about the cultivation and nurturing of the new seeds. A much higher demand for fertilisers and pesticides emerged as the new variety made it possible to have two crops a year. The period between the crops became shorter and so the demand for machines became higher. More and more farmers started to use tractors to plough their land. The Green Revolution led to a more market orientated way of farming. As more pesticides and fertilisers were needed the input costs would also rise. Most of these costs would be invested by the farmers themselves, but some borrowed money from banks or friends (Dasgupta, 1977).
To conclude, the Green Revolution encompassed much more than just a simple change of seed. It changed the way farmers were cultivating in every possible way. The policies of the Green Revolution are therefore very much in line with the advice in the Brundtland report and one could say that the Indian government was ahead of the advice of the UN in 1987. The transformation from a traditional labour intensive way of farming to a more capital intensive way of farming with the use of chemicals and machines occurred in a relatively short period. Until today the agricultural sector is still modernising, although organic farming is on its way up. This will be explained in the next paragraph.
4.2
The impact of environmental stress to marginal and small scale farmers
in TRP
Between March and May the temperatures can rise to extreme heights of about 45 ºC. Data from the Agricultural Technology Management Agency (2006) shows that the rainfall in the district of Karaikal is becoming increasingly less predictable. The years 1997 and 2004 had an annual rainfall of about 2040 mm of rain. The record low years of 1999 and 2003 only had an annual rainfall of about 1000 mm (ATMA, 2006). The unpredictability and record low rainfall cause farmers to be unable to know when to plant and when to harvest.
This paragraph will explain what the consequences of environmental stresses are on the small scale. It will first explain with what environmental stresses the farmers are dealing. It will then explain in what way the farmers are adapting to these stresses.
4.2.1 Dealing with water scarcity and high salinity levels
The farmers in the case of TRP rely completely on irrigated water from the Cauvery River. Most farmers in Tamil Nadu produce rice similarly as they do in TRP. Rice is a water intensive crop and therefore needs to be cultivated in wetlands. As the rainfall is becoming increasingly more unpredictable and TRP is located near the coast, the farmers here rely
