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The Production and Adaptation of Knowledge on Organic and GM Cotton Farms in Telangana, India

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The Production and Adaptation of Knowledge on Organic and GM Cotton Farms in Telangana, India Washington University in St. Louis Washington University Open Scholarship Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations Arts & Sciences Summer 8-15-2016 Cultivating Knowledge: The rP oduction and Adaptation of Knowledge on Organic and GM Cotton Farms in Telangana, India Andrew Flachs Washington University in St. Louis Follow this and additional works at: https://openscholarship.wustl.edu/art_sci_etds Recommended Citation Flachs, Andrew, "Cultivating Knowledge: The rP oduction and Adaptation of Knowledge on Organic and GM Cotton Farms in Telangana, India" (2016). Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 847. https://openscholarship.wustl.edu/art_sci_etds/847 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Arts & Sciences at Washington University Open Scholarship. It has been accepted for inclusion in Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Washington University Open Scholarship. For more information, please contact [email protected]. WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY IN ST. LOUIS Department of Anthropology Dissertation Examination Committee: Glenn Davis Stone, Chair Peter Benson Geoff Childs Gayle Fritz Gautam N. Yadama Cultivating Knowledge: The Production and Adaptation of Knowledge on Organic and GM Cotton Farms in Telangana, India by Andrew Flachs A dissertation presented to the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences of Washington University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy August, 2016 St. Louis, Missouri © 2016, Andrew Flachs i TABLE OF CONTENTS List of Figures iii List of Tables v Abbreviations vi Acknowledgments vii Chapter 1: The Social Politics of Knowledge on Cotton Farms in Telangana, India 01 Chapter 2: Methodology and Site Description 19 Chapter 3: The Translation of Regulation and Technology from an American to Indian Context 40 Chapter 4: Divergent Agricultural Regimes as Tools to Explore the Creation and Adaptation of Agricultural Knowledge 61 Chapter 5: The Social Politics of the Breakdown in Environmental Learning Among GM Cotton Farmers 83 Chapter 6: Persistent Knowledge in Rice Fields 149 Chapter 7: Overcoming False Starts: Didactic Learning on Organic Farms in the Warangal and Adilabad Districts 191 Chapter 8: Show Farmers 238 Chapter 9: Transformative Sentiment in Intervention Programs 282 Chapter 10: Conclusions and Implications 315 Works Cited 327 Appendix A: Conventional Farmer Seed Surveys 2012-2013 348 Appendix B: Ethnobotanical Survey 353 Appendix C: Shop Survey 356 Appendix D: Organic Farmer Seed Surveys 2013-2014 357 ii LIST OF FIGURES Figure 2.1: Map of Research Area 22 Figure 4.1: Crops Discussed in this Thesis and their Relationship to Tripartite Learning 79 Figure 5.1: Cotton Seeds by Percentage of Households Buying a Particularly Popular Brand 86 Figure 5.2: Average Number of Years Farmers Plant Cotton Seeds 2012-2014 104 Figure 5.3: Changes in Cotton Planting Density 109 Figure 5.4: Yields from Cotton Single Lining and Double Lining Reported for 2012 and 2013 110 Figure 5.5: Average Number of Cotton Seeds per Farmer per Year by Quintile 117 Figure 5.6: Number of Seeds Planted per Farmer and Years Planted per Seed as a Function of Maximum Holdings Size per Farmer During the 2012-2014 Planting Season 118 Figure 5.7: Scatterplots Comparing 2013 Land Holdings and Socioeconomic Characteristics of the Pedda Farmers 120-121 Figure 5.8: Mean Yields per acre from Seeds Planted 2012 by Holdings Quintile Knowledge in Rice Fields 129 Figure 5.9: Boxplots for 2012 Fad Seed Yields Per Acre 130 Figure 5.10: Boxplots for 2013 Fad Seed Yields Per Acre 131 Figure 5.11: Boxplots for 2013 Fad Seed Yields 133 Figure 5.12: Summary of Fad Seeds Planted by Household 2012-2014 with Table of Values 134 Figure 5.13: Fad Seed Yields Vs. Other Seed Yields 135-138 Figure 5.14: Boxplots comparing holdings size of fad and non fad planting farmers in the year before they become popular 140 Figure 6.1: Popular Rice Seed Choice Patterns 2012-2014 as a Percentage of Households Choosing the Seed (varieties accounting for 1% or more of sample) 156 Figure 6.2: Comparison of Farmers’ Rice and Cotton Choices per Farmer per season, Averaged for each farmer’s choices 2012-2014 160 Figure 6.3: Histograms comparing average number of years rice and cotton seeds are planted per farmer Seed Yields Vs. Other Seed Yields 162 Figure 6.4: Scatterplot of 2012-2014 Warangal 14 Yields Against Rice Acreage 169 iii Figure 6.5: Boxplots of Rice Yields for the Most Popular Varieties 2012-2014 173 Figure 6.6: Plant Knowledge and the Commodity Spectrum 188 Figure 7.1: Boxplot of Cotton Yields per acre per Household of Organic and GM Farmers 209 Figure 7.2: Percentage of Households Receiving Material Benefits from Organic Programs 2012-2013 (n = 101) 211 Figure 7.3: Socioeconomic Characteristics of Show Farmers Compared to Other Organic Farmers in their Villages 217-218 Figure 7.4: Average Farmer Experience with Organic Cotton Seeds Provided by Prakruti or PANTA Compared to Average Year Experience with GM Cotton Seeds 2013-2014 227 Figure 7.5: Histogram showing frequency of number of years experience which GM and Organic cotton farmers planted cotton seeds 2013- 14 228 iv LIST OF TABLES Table 2.1: Village Distribution of Farmer Respondents 22 Table 2.2: Interview Structure 33 Table 5.1: Gene Constructs in Indian GM Cotton Seeds 2002-2011 96 Table 5.2: Farmer Knowledge of Bt in 2014 Sample (n = 463) as a Percentage of the Whole 97 Table 5.3: Absence of Relationship between Yield and Elements of Environmental Skill or Status 108 Table 5.4: 2013 Social and Agricultural Comparison of top 20% of Farmers Vs. Average of bottom 80% 122 Table 5.5: Seed Vendors Accounting for Greater than 1% of Sample 2012-2014 124-125 Table 6.1: 2014 Cotton Knowledge Consensus as a Row Percentage 165 Table 6.2: 2014 Rice Knowledge Consensus as a Row Percentage 167 Table 6.3: Seed Vendors accounting for more than 1% of Total Rice Choices in All Villages 2012-2014 171 Table 7.1: Counts for Alternative Input Strategies on Organic Farms 2013-14, n = 101 212 Table 7.2: Seed Vendors accounting for more than 1% of Total Cotton Seed Choices in Organic Villages 2013-2014 229 Table 7.3: 2014 Cotton Knowledge Consensus as a Row Percentage 230 v ABBREVIATIONS ANGRAU Archarya NG Ranga Agricultural University BC Backward Caste Bt Bacillus thuringiensis MATCH (Psuedonym) NGO representing non-GM cotton farmers SUS (Pseudonym) Umbrella NGO for Sustainable Agriculture PANTA (Pseudonym) NGO Representing non-certified organic farmers DBT Department of Biotechnology ICAR Indian Council of Agricultural Research ICRISAT International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics IPM Integrated Pest Management GEAC Genetic Engineering Approval Committee GIS Geographic Information System GMO Genetically Modified Organism GM Genetically Modified GPS Geographic Positioning System NGO Non-Governmental Organization NPM Non-Pesticide Management MNC Multinational Company OC Open Caste OPV Open Pollinated Variety RDF Rural Development Foundation SC Scheduled Caste SHG Self Help Group SRI System of Rice Intensification ST Scheduled Tribe US United States USDA United States Department of Agriculture vi Acknowledgements Many people and institutions contributed to this dissertation. It is both humbling and extremely gratifying to give them their due praise in this section: humbling because, despite the individualist nature of sociocultural anthropology and dissertation-writing, I owe my intellectual development, my work, my funding, my skillset, and my very sanity to a dedicated group of friends and colleagues; gratifying because I am allowed to break the individualist plane for a moment and recognize their contributions. Within India, I am grateful to the many farmers, scientists, academics, and officials who allowed me to speak with them. These people are too numerous to mention, but a few deserve special recognition. Dr. E. Revathi of the Centre for Economic and Social Studies and Dr. R. Ganesan provided valuable logistical support, intellectual advice, and helped arrange my Indian research visa. Ramavath Bikshapathi and Golusula Rani provided support and friendship as I worked in their villages and beyond. Dr. Uma Reddy helped connect me with important agricultural data, farmer societies, and alternative farming models. The staff of Prakruti Organic and the Centre for Sustainable Agriculture were gracious enough to host me and help in this research, particularly Kishan Rao. Without the support of Ram Mohan Rao and Vandita Rao, I would never have been able to conduct this research. They provided contacts, logistical support, a network of tireless friends, teachers, and students through the Rural Development Foundation, and allowed me to feel truly welcome and at home at Kavrupad. I am especially grateful to Ram Mohan for innumerable book suggestions, terrific conversations on India, religion, and history, and his insightful perspective on India. Even at my most critical and analytical, I truly believe vii that their goodwill and tremendous efforts in developing and empowering rural India through RDF are changing Telangana, India, and the world for the better. As a foreigner who arrived in Telangana in 2012 speaking only the most basic Telugu, I am indebted to the assistance and friendship of my research assistants: Christine Diepenbrock, Golusula Rani, G. Ranjith Kumar, Arun Vainala Kumar, Shivaprasad Citimar Sonnar, Koduri Karthik, Mutiraj Vykuntam, Jadav Chakradhar, and Barik Rao. Each taught me a great deal about India, provided excellent insights into this research, and was willing to work with me in the often hot, wet, and unpleasant rural conditions that this research required. I am especially grateful to Ranjith and Arun, who invited me into their homes, who helped to arrange further research assistants, and who went above and beyond in their service to this project. It would not have been nearly as fun without them.
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