Organic Agriculture from the Perspective of Small Farmers’ Livelihood Strategies: Two Cases from Central and South India

Abstract

Although organic agriculture has been studied as a livelihood and an intervention for small farmers, it has rarely been analyzed within their overall livelihood strategies. This article explores how small farmers’ livelihood strategies influence their perceptions of organic agriculture, focusing on the interactions of organic farming with other livelihood options. The analysis draws on two case studies of two projects run by a non-governmental organization aiming to convert small farmers in India into certified organic farmers. In the first case, the ecological and economic values of organic agriculture suited the livelihood strategy of subsistence farmers. However, this perception was applied not to the production of an exportable crop, coffee, but to the production of a variety of crops. In the second case, where small farmers were concerned with a specific cash crop, cotton, they put more emphasis on the economic value of organic agriculture. Such a perception of organic agriculture eventually led them to prefer conventional farming. In both cases, the interactions with other livelihood options made small farmers’ organic agriculture unsuitable for export purposes. The form of organic agriculture practiced by small farmers may not be linked with organic markets in the global North.