Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
nal markets while increasing civic engagement and control in agriculture.
The policy also disrupts the long-standing but dysfunctional relationship
between “the farmer, and the scientist, and the administrator” in India.
The organic farming policy weakens the power that the Agriculture De-
partment has over farming activities in the state. The Biodiversity Board
asserted itself in the department's jurisdiction by making agricultural
policy, atempting to reshape the rules and norms around agriculture to
promote organic farming exclusively as a solution to Kerala's agrarian
problems, and incorporating farmers' input to make these changes.
This struggle between the Biodiversity Board and the Agriculture
Department was also shaped by competing visions for agriculture and the
environment in Kerala and the role of science in each vision.
The technological and scientific optimism behind the Green Revolu-
tion's increases in productivity have become entrenched in Kerala's ag-
ricultural bureaucracy, rendering alternative conceptions of agricultural
production unthinkable. This optimism has had significant traction here
because of the state's agricultural history and the priorities of its coalition
governments.
A consistent theme in Kerala's state politics is the notion that the agri-
cultural sector is stagnant and could be more productive in terms of yields
per acre. The historical food shortages that the state has faced and the
desire to earn more foreign exchange have influenced this perspective.
The state's Five Year and Annual Plans, for example, regularly refer to in-
creasing the productivity of agriculture in Kerala and have been doing so
since the formation of the state in the 1950s.28 The government — under
both LDF and UDF (United Democratic Front) coalitions—has there-
fore promoted the use of chemical inputs to increase agricultural output.
And, most important, the state has encouraged the increased production
of cash crops to revitalize the agrarian economy. Maximizing yields and
supporting commercial crops with chemical inputs have historically been
key strategies for Kerala's existing agricultural institutions, such as K AU.
The Teacher's Association of K AU issued a rebutal to the organic farm-
ing policy that regurgitates this line about productivity and therefore
characterizes the policy as unscientific and the opposite of “modern” in
