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Digesting agriculture development: nutrition-oriented development and the political ecology of rice–body relations in India

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Abstract

Nutrition-sensitive agriculture (NSA) has emerged as a major development paradigm that works to diversify crops and diets throughout the Global South in order to improve nutritional outcomes. Drawing on a conceptual framework from political ecologies of health that looks at political economic factors, social discourse, and embodied, material experiences of food, I analyze qualitative and ethnographic data from an integrated NSA intervention in Madhya Pradesh and Jharkhand, India. The analysis shows that while embodied experiences of differing rice varieties (either indigenous or improved) were central to research participants’ conceptions of bodily health, mainstream NSA metrics had trouble ‘seeing’ these relations in meaningful ways. Moreover, although material experiences of rice cultivation and consumption anchored participants’ rice preferences, structural economic realities along with notions of social identity were always interwoven. Yet, while villagers expressed divergent perceptions around how the different rice cultivars shaped their bodily health, agricultural officers tended to view rice experiences as a product of culture, rather than as material and socio-ecological food-body interactions. In sum, this paper argues more deeply engaging with the political economic, socially symbolic, and embodied ways that communities relate to food production and consumption would allow NSA research to develop more grounded and inclusive understandings of agriculture-nutrition linkages.

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Notes

  1. All proper nouns are pseudonyms to protect anonymity of respondents.

  2. While this is the literal translation it is reference to different in grain size whereas the patli/skinny rice is fine grain and the moti/fat rice has a bold grain.

  3. To be clear, not all indigenous rice produce a ‘fat’ bold grain and not all improved varieties produce a ‘skinny’ fine-grain, however in these particular study sites rice varieties largely followed this distinction (see Longvah et al. 2021).

  4. I am using pseudonyms for these regions.

  5. While most crops are designated a minimum support price, the government procurement agency favors rice and wheat (Chhatre et al. 2016b).

  6. Indigenous and improved rice varieties fetched a similar price in the local markets where they were sold—between 10–12 rupees/kg (approx. US 0.20).

  7. Both indigenous and improved rice varieties were milled and polished at a local mill in similar fashion, which removed the bran and pericarp, leaving only the starch-based endosperm. Neither type was ‘parboiled’ as is done in other regions of India.

  8. But see Berni et al. (2018), Mbanjo et al. (2020) for more on genetic basis of nutrition in pigmented rice landraces.

  9. The other commonly grown indigenous varieties (known locally as Raibuta and Mohan bogh) took 120-150 days to mature and were grown on lowland fields.

  10. Leveled fields were needed for water to properly puddle for transplanting improved varieties.

  11. Yields were highly differential based on land quality and input usage, but according to agricultural extension officials averaged 8-10 quintal/acre for indigenous paddy cultivated via broadcast sowing and 15-18 quintal/acre for improved rice cultivated via transplanting.

  12. The English word “tension” has become incorporated into Hindi and is used to signal emotional/mental distress (see Weaver 2017).

Abbreviations

GR:

Green revolution

HYV:

High-yielding variety

MP:

Madhya Pradesh

NGO:

Non-governmental organization

NSA:

Nutrition-sensitive agriculture

PEH:

Political ecology of health

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Acknowledgements

I would like to acknowledge the two anonymous reviewers who provided very helpful comments on the manuscript as well as Dr. Matthew Sanderson for excellent editorial guidance. I would also like to thank my colleagues Nicolena von Hedemann and Vincent Del Casino for providing helpful comments on earlier drafts. I would also like to thank Shanu, Sam, Komal, and Saraswati for providing excellent field assistance in Dumka and Dindori and Megha for helping with transcriptions. Thanks to everyone at the IFPRI New Delhi office for providing support and conversation during the research period. Finally very big thanks to all the people in Ajeevika and especially the women research participants for so kindly hosting me and sharing their experiences and insights. This work was supported financially by the Borlaug Fellowship for Global Food Security and the Society of Women Geographers Pruitt Fellowship, but these organizations were not involved in the study’s design, data collection, analysis, report writing, or submission for publication. Any errors and omissions are the authors own.

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Nichols, C.E. Digesting agriculture development: nutrition-oriented development and the political ecology of rice–body relations in India. Agric Hum Values 39, 757–771 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10460-021-10285-z

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