D34ZNJPG

2414

23 décembre 2020 14:23

23 décembre 2020 14:23

The need for sustainability in agriculture has become increasingly important in the face of mounting pressures from the changing environment. Several strategies for governing sustainability responses have emerged, one of which has been the adoption of private organic agriculture standards within formalized global value chains. A less researched strategy, however, has been the creation of non-formal forms of agriculture as a response to the specific problems faced by smallholder farmers in the Global South. This study seeks to fill this gap by studying organic agriculture as a form of agrienvironmental governance in India. Using an Assemblage Thinking approach, it deals with the question of how varieties in organic agriculture arise in response to problems faced on the ground in a specific and situated geographical context. More specifically, I examine non-formal, existing versions of organic agriculture, exploring the diverse forms of organic agriculture in rice production as practiced in West Bengal state, and across parts of India. The problem of a lack of understanding non-formal forms of governance leads to a narrow view of sustainability governance as being mainly driven by desires and forces external to the system in question. The aim of this dissertation is to contribute to the discussion around agri-environmental governance by providing an overview of the various components, both discursive and non-discursive, which interact together and are utilized by various actors to produce an emergent form of organic. Put simply, the non-formal varieties of organic exist as an alternative imaginary of globalization, and arrange materials differently. In doing so, these assemblages challenge other concurrent assemblages of globalization like input-intensive farming and organic-for-export, creating a map composed of incommensurabilities and strange alliances to better understand governance in practice. Chapter 2 in this dissertation, Conceptual Framework: Assemblage Thinking and Agri- Environmental Governance in the Anthropocene, contributes to the literature on approaches to governance, comparing the GVC analysis approach and Assemblage Thinking approach. It also identifies aspects in Assemblage theory to incorporate into Assemblage Thinking approaches. Chapter 4, Recoding Sustainability in Organic Agriculture: Locating Approaches On the Continuum between Two Paradigms of Sustainability in Agriculture, compares the two paradigms of Sustainable Intensification and Agroecological Intensification which frame two competing approaches to sustainability in agri-environmental governance. Organic agriculture is conceptualized as a package of discourses and practices placed along the continuum between these two paradigms. Chapter 5, What Can Organic Do? A Rhizomatic Approach to Understanding Organic Agriculture in India, situates organic agriculture in the context of India, adopting different perspectives of its implementation over time. Chapter 6, Organic as a Capitalist Assemblage: Understanding The Role of Companies in Territorializing Organic Agriculture in India, explores the governance by companies involved in the formal form of organic, and focuses on the implications of requirements as outlined by standards put into practice. Chapter 7, Organic as a Departure from Territorial Assemblages: Smallholder Rice Farmers and Initiatives for Sustainability in West Bengal, examines the role of non-formal organic agriculture as a way of opening up new room for experimentation as farmers negotiate between competing assemblages. Chapter 8, Constructing New Markets: The Potential of Organic Agriculture as a Nomadic Assemblage, describes various initiatives to build value chains around the interests of farmers, and the potential for opening up future lines of flight. Conceptually, this dissertation demonstrates the use of Assemblage Thinking in aiding a better understanding of the specificities of place while linking it to wider academic and societal debates. This approach allows the linking of theories from different fields pertinent to organic agriculture, clarifying debates on sustainability of agricultural systems, as well as exploring the complementary approaches of agroecology and Assemblage Thinking. Agri-environmental governance is conceptualized as an emergent process arising from an adaptation to circumstances, which leads to the possibility of innovations wherever capacities are created. Empirically, the varieties of organic agriculture explored in this dissertation explore the different desires driving formal and non-formal systems, making clear their limitations and possibilities. Organic as a concept is understood as a multi-faceted assemblage, at times enabling prevalent systems and at times challenging them. Although biological integration of farm systems emerges as a key theme driving the adoption of non-formal organic, the physical reality of place and distance thwarts efforts to encourage widespread adoption.

None

• AB - Spécifique
• FREDO étude des variétés
• GEO Allemagne
• GEO Inde

2020

1 janvier 2020