Sustainable agrarian subaltern development through technology intervention: an experimental study of the interventions by Indian Farmers Fertilizer Cooperative Limited

Amit Kundu (), Dev Narayan Sarkar () and Arabinda Bhattacharya ()
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Amit Kundu: Techno India Group
Dev Narayan Sarkar: PepsiCo India
Arabinda Bhattacharya: University of Calcutta

Journal of Social and Economic Development, 2020, vol. 22, issue 1, No 7, 142-159

Abstract: Abstract Farmers constitute a major portion of the subaltern population in agrarian economies like India. Sustainable agricultural practices are claimed to be the key to the social and economic advancement of subaltern farmers in India. The district of Murshidabad, in the state of West Bengal, India, is significant because of its crop variety, favorable agro-climatic situation, and its soil conditions. But surprisingly, more than thirty percent of its population lives below the poverty line. This indicates that the general agricultural conditions, which exist in this district, are not utilized optimally for the socioeconomic development of the farmers. The imbalanced use of fertilizers, coupled with a relatively lesser application of organics, has progressively degraded soil health, causing multi-nutrient deficiencies, as well as declining productivity. The present experiment is based on the All India Soil Rejuvenation and Crop Productivity Enhancement Project, a specific project under the aegis of the Indian Farmers Fertiliser Cooperative Limited (IFFCO), in the Murshidabad district. Since the present study was intended as an experiment, a control group of farmers in five neighboring villages, the ones where no project interventions were made, were also interviewed. While the analysis was done on the experimental group, results of the corresponding analysis using the control are also mentioned in the ensuing discussions. It is aimed at presenting and analyzing the impact of the aforementioned project on the sustainable socioeconomic development of the target groups within the selected blocks of the district. Three factors, namely technology branding (F1), value perceptions (F2), and distribution network (F3), have emerged as the important antecedents that lead to a significant financial improvement in the farmers which, in turn, ensures inclusive growth.

Keywords: Soil rejuvenation and crop productivity; Inclusive growth; Farmers; Technology branding; Value perceptions; Distribution network; Rural markets (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
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DOI: 10.1007/s40847-020-00092-3

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