Managing Sustainable Transitions: Institutional Innovations from India

Abstract

Despite the widespread disruptions of lives and livelihoods due to the COVID-19 pandemic, it could also be seen as a gamechanger. The post-pandemic recovery should address fundamental questions concerning our food systems. Is it possible to reset existing ecologically unsustainable production systems towards healthier and more connected systems of conscious consumers and ecologically oriented farmers? Based on three illustrative cases from different parts of India, we show how managing transitions towards sustainability require institutional innovations and new intermediaries that build agency, change relations, and transform structures in food systems. Lessons from three diverse geographies and commodities in India are presented: urban farming initiatives in Mumbai, conscious consumer initiatives in semi-urban Gujarat for pesticide-free mangoes, and resource-poor arid regions of Andhra Pradesh. Through these examples, we show that, beyond the technological solutions, institutional innovations such as urban community-supported farming models, Participatory Guarantee Schemes, and Farmer Producer Organisations (FPOs) can enable sustainable transitions. Sustainable lifestyles in a post COVID-19 world, as the cases show, require collective experimentation with producers that go beyond changed consumer behaviour to transform structures in food systems.

FPOs as a Sustainable Business: Factors impacting performance of Agriculture Collectives in India

“…A recent study recommended that Farmer Producer Organisations (FPOs) can enable sustainable transitions during these covid times (Chebrolu and dutta 2021). In another study in India, it was concluded that FPO facilitates many innovative practices and helps in economic, environmental, and social benefits to the FPO.…”

Preparing an Organization for Sustainability Transitions—The Making of Boundary Spanners through Design Training

“…Transition management is about fostering sustainability transitions from a system perspective [8], where participatory, collaborative processes involving multiple actors and individuals are considered essential to reach the ultimate goal of sustainability. In fact, recent literature often presents the need for intermediary actors and organizations to navigate the fluid boundaries between adaptation and transformation in sustainable transitions [16,23,24]. Still, the framework of transition management is lacking in detail as to how organizations and individuals can in practice and prepare to engage in transition processes inside as well as outside of the organization.…”

Managing sustainable transition through farmer-owned enterprises: the case of Ram Rahim Pragati Producer Company

“…The risk of climate change and environmental degradation can impact their livelihoods significantly, as they continue to recognise that the input-intensive modes of agriculture, following the Green Revolution, come at high costs. With increasing evidence of the ecological footprint of agriculture the transition to sustainable agriculture is an imperative and yet public policies continue to favour industrial chemical agriculture even as agroecological alternatives exist (Kumar et al , 2021; Paul et al , 2023; Prasad and Dutta, 2021).…”

“…Mignon and Kanda (2018) discussed the type of organisations that may play the role of transition intermediaries, namely, network or cluster organisations, government-funded agencies that provide resource support and project development companies or consultancies. However, in the case of agricultural and food systems transitions, an important form of organisation is the PO (Prasad and Dutta, 2021; Groot-Kormelinck et al , 2022). POs play the role of intermediaries for their members both in classic terms and in terms of sustainability transitions (Groot-Kormelinck et al , 2022).…”