Agriculture collectives in North Bengal

cg.authorship.typesCGIAR single centreen
cg.contributor.affiliationInternational Water Management Instituteen
cg.contributor.donorCGIAR Trust Funden
cg.coverage.regionSouthern Asia
cg.identifier.urlhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mmCB8hst77Uen
cg.placeIWMIen
cg.reviewStatusInternal Reviewen
cg.subject.ilriAGRICULTUREen
cg.subject.ilriFARMING SYSTEMSen
cg.subject.impactAreaGender equality, youth and social inclusion
cg.subject.impactPlatformGender
cg.subject.sdgSDG 5 - Gender equalityen
dc.contributor.authorInternational Water Management Instituteen
dc.date.accessioned2022-04-03T11:20:48Zen
dc.date.available2022-04-03T11:20:48Zen
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/10568/119224
dc.titleAgriculture collectives in North Bengalen
dcterms.abstractIn South Asia, over 80% of farmers cultivate two hectares or less. Most farms are technically constrained and economically non-viable. As a novel experiment, between 2015-2019 a set of farmer collectives were piloted by a consortium of NGO and research partners in the Eastern Gangetic Plains, to see if this could help marginal and small farmers overcome their constraints in a region with exploitative landlord-tenant relations and poor irrigation access. This participatory action research project entailed the formation of collectives of 4-10 farmers (of varying gender composition), each cultivating contiguous plots and collaborating in land management, production and marketing in varying degrees. The project provided irrigation through electric and solar boreholes but twinning this with a collective approach to create a large contiguous plot was critical to make the irrigation practical and efficient. This approach enabled resource-poor farmers to farm all year round. All the groups reported higher crop yields, and tenant farmers gained more bargaining power with landlords. This documentary focuses on the West Bengal collectives. It probes the benefits the farmers have reaped as well as the challenges they continue to face in terms of labour sharing and marketing, especially under the twin shadows of the pandemic and climate change. The collectives were implemented by the Centre for the Development of Human Initiatives (CDHI), with support from the University of Southern Queensland, the International Water Management Institute (IWMI), the University of Birmingham and North Bengal Agricultural University (UBKV). Sugden, Agarwal, Leder, Saikia, Kumar, Ray (2020). Experiments in farmers’ collectives in Eastern India and Nepal. Journal of Agrarian Change. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/joac.12369en
dcterms.accessRightsOpen Access
dcterms.audienceScientistsen
dcterms.bibliographicCitationIWMI. 2022. Agriculture collectives in North Bengal. Video. Colombo, Sri Lanka: IWMI.en
dcterms.issued2022-01-04en
dcterms.languageother
dcterms.licenseOther
dcterms.subjectagricultureen
dcterms.subjectclimate changeen
dcterms.subjectfarming systemsen
dcterms.subjectfarmers associationsen
dcterms.typeVideo

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