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Agrarian change and rural transformations in India

Project activities

Research workshops

  • A virtual collaborative analysis and writing workshop for all START members, held between May 15th and June 10th, 2020: Included critical reading groups, discussion on new tools and methods for data collection and analysis, formulation of paper outlines for academic output.
  • Research Methodology workshop in MSSRF Chennai, January 2019: The START team met at MSSRF Chennai to deliberate and finalize a research protocol to be used by the research teams across all our sites.
  • START-led TIGR2ESS workshop in ICRISAT, August 2018: A three-day TIGR2ESS-wide workshop was led by START in August 2018 in order to find areas of convergence and collaboration between members across different flagship projects.

Other outreach activities

  • Workshop, led by Bhaskar Vira and Nitya Rao, with the Rural Upliftment Division of the Tata Trusts in Delhi, September 2020. The workshop introduced FP1 research to the Trust and explored points of common interest for future collaboration.

  • FP1 colleagues at ICRISAT organised a two-day stakeholder engagement workshop: Farmers Training, engagement in field research and exposure visit to 28 (men and women) farmers from TIGR2ESS research site villages in Warangal (R) of Telangana state.

  • FP1 colleagues at ICRISAT undertook farmer training exercise: Training the 28 farmers (men and women) on good agricultural practices of important crops of their region

  • MSSRF engaged with state level officials in Tamil Nadu on their research findings on the challenges posed by soil salinity to the future of farming in the field area (Sirkazhi block-Vanagiri Panchayath).

  • Using freelance photographer Toby Smith’s photos of FP1 field sites in collaboration with UK PDRA Shreya Sinha, we launched a photo-based social media campaign on Twitter to publicize the research being done by FP1 which was well received (October 2019-January 2020)

  • Also using Toby Smith’s photos from FP1 sites, an exhibition was set up in Stroud and Stonehouse stations in Gloucestershire, with captions developed by a local environment/youth group (started in November 2019 and ongoing in February 2020, funded by the ESRC Festival of Social Science)

CSaP activities

The Centre for Science and Policy (CSaP) is leading an important policy engagement component on START by facilitating a dialogue between TIGR2ESS researchers and policy-makers in India. These include:

CSaP Fellowships

CSaP will host an inaugural group of senior Indian policy stakeholders in Cambridge to engage in dialogue and a set of structured meetings with selected academics and policy makers on food security and sustainable rural livelihoods. As International Policy Fellows, these individuals will also have opportunities for ongoing engagement over two years with CSaP, TIGR2ESS and policy makers and academics within the network.

CSaP has hosted Mr Suresh Kumar (Chief Principal Secretary, Government of Punjab) and Mr T. Vijay Kumar (Advisor and Co-Vice Chairman, Zero Budget Natural Farming, Andhra Pradesh) as policy fellows so far.

Workshops

  1. TIGR2ESS Policy Workshop, May 2020: A roundtable discussion between Mr T. Vijay Kumar (Advisor and Co-Vice Chairman, Zero Budget Natural Farming, Andhra Pradesh) and TIGR2ESS colleagues

  2. TIGR2ESS Policy Workshop, November 2019: A roundtable discussion between Mr Suresh Kumar (Chief Principal Secretary, Government of Punjab) and TIGR2ESS colleagues

  3. TIGR2ESS Policy Workshop, November 2018: A roundtable discussion on food security and sustainable rural livelihoods with Professors Vijay Raghavan (Principal Scientific Adviser, Government of India), Srijit Mishra (Professor, Nabakrushna Choudhury Centre for Development Studies, India), and Jaideep Prabhu (Jawaharlal Nehru Professor of Indian Business and Enterprise, Director of the Centre for India and Global Business (CIGB))