Changing Farming Lives in South India, Past and Present

Aims

The research aims to explore the relevance of oral history, as an arts and humanities approach and method, in accessing women farmers’ knowledge of food crops, particularly millets, seen as crucial to the goals of achieving food security and sovereignty in the context of climate change.

Investigators

Sandip Hazareesingh, Open University (Principal Investigator)

Funding

This project is funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC).

Summary

A partnership between researchers in the UK and the NGO Green Foundation in India, the research focuses on women farmers in the State of Karnataka in South India. As small-scale producers, women farmers are increasingly acknowledged to be crucial in attaining food security and ending hunger globally. By bringing their local voices to the fore, the research will identify new perspectives on the global challenge of sustainable and inclusive development.

The timeliness of this research also stems from growing concerns expressed by influential bodies such as the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that India's high vulnerability and exposure to climate change threatens to erode food security and make poverty reduction more difficult.

Finally, it responds to recent calls to inject historical perspectives into present-day climate change debates and to explore experiences of vulnerability and resilience as long-term processes, produced by a range of societal phenomena inherited from the past.

Outcomes

The research has produced 4 videos featuring women talking about their farming experiences and 2 research articles. 

The first article is on women farmers’ cultural memories and knowledge of millet foods, (2021). 'Our grandmother used to sing whilst weeding': Oral histories, millet food culture, and farming rituals among women smallholders in Ramanagara district, Karnataka. Modern Asian Studies, 55(3) pp. 938–972. The second article is on the importance of food heritage for sustainable futures (2022). Food Heritage for Sustainable Futures: Women's Cultures and Knowledge as Hidden Pillars of Alternative Foodways. In: Cross, Charlotte and Giblin, John D. eds. Critical Approaches to Heritage for Development. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge, pp. 108–123.

These materials are being used by local project partner Green Foundation to promote women small farmers’ status and importance in maintaining food crop knowledge and related cultural performances crucial to achieving food security, biodiversity, and resilient livelihoods.

As resources for use in a variety of campaigning and policy-oriented advocacy work, they also provide Green Foundation with wider opportunities for strategic networking with organisations concerned to strengthen the resilience of small farmer agriculture in the face of climate change.

Finally, the research has highlighted the benefits of oral history as an arts and humanities approach to documenting both challenges and creative practices, also relevant to the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 5 (Gender Equality), 3 (Good Health and Well-Being), 2 (Zero Hunger), and 1 (No Poverty).