Himalayan Agricultures, Ecologies and Local Food Sovereignties

Abstract

ABSTRACTIn July 2013, India passed a Food Security Ordinance designed to guarantee cheap grain for the poor – about two-thirds of the population. This was largely in belated recognition of levels of child malnutrition exceeding that of the whole of Africa. This massive food insecurity has been the flip-side of spectacular economic growth, largely in urban areas, which has created one of the largest middle-classes in the world. The policies which enabled this growth reversed decades of previous policy prioritising national food production and rural development. Other consequences have included corporatisation and ‘neoliberalisation’ of agriculture­ and widespread ‘agrarian distress’ manifesting most dramatically in epidemic levels of farmer suicides. One of the few exceptions to this pattern has been the foothills of the Himalayas, where agriculture has been relatively insulated from these changes and food sovereignty has remained largely in the hands of local communities. But this has not been without challenges of economic under-development, outmigration, environmental degradation and most recently the floods of June 2013. This article argues that the cultural ecologies of the hills provide a model and foundation for rural development based on traditional agriculture and local food sovereignty.