Speaker: Dr Bina Agarwal, Professor at the University of Manchester

Location: LSE Fawcett House (FAW), Room 9.04 map

This talk is co-hosted with the LSE and will be held at 17:30 at the LSE. Dr Agarwal will give a talk on gender and communal farming.

Despite global concern with agrarian inequalities and sustainable livelihoods, rather little attention has been paid to the institutional transformation of agriculture. The debate on farm types has focused mainly on small family farms vs. large commercial farms. Equally, few programmes for economically empowering rural women focus seriously on farming—the one occupation in which they have most experience. In this context, experiments in two Indian states— Kerala and Telangana— stand out, for their innovative institutional form, namely group farming by women. Can these provide an alternative model of farming? Based on her primary surveys, Prof. Bina Agarwal examines whether group farms—which pool land, labour and capital and cultivate jointly—can outperform (mostly male-managed) individual family farms in the same regions, in terms of productivity and profits. Can they also empower the women socially and politically? Moreover, given their different approaches, which state is more effective and why?

Event will be preceded by a reception at 5.30pm