From sharecropping to crop-rent: women farmers changing agricultural production relations in rural South Asia

Date

2015

Authors

Lahiri-Dutt, Kuntala
Adhikari, Mohanraj

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Volume Title

Publisher

Kluwer Academic Publishers

Abstract

This paper explores changing production relations in agriculture in context of increasingly widespread and longer-duration male outmigration, as against previous, short-duration and seasonal migration. It investigates how de facto women-heads of households (WHHs) are changing a resilient crop-sharing system in absence of adequate access to productive assets, formal training or experience in farming, and while contributing labour to farming and coping with gendered demands on their time. Based on qualitative inquiry in one of the poorest parts of South Asia, the Eastern Gangetic Plains, the paper shows that a section of WHHs are replacing sharecropping arrangements with fixed-value rental arrangements that resemble commercial contracts. The paper ends with a discussion on the implications of this emerging development.

Description

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Citation

Source

Agriculture and Human Values

Type

Journal article

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Restricted until

2037-12-31