Why Grow Cash Crops? Subsistence Farming and Crop Commercialization in the Kolli Hills, South India

Abstract

In this article, I provide an analysis of local decision making surrounding crop commercialization in the Kolli Hills, South India. I argue that in the context of changes in the physical environment, cultivating tapioca (cassava) as a cash crop is a conscious decision made by small farmers based on their perceptions of environmental insecurity. Farmers understand market integration as key to coping with external, uncontrollable changes and to fulfilling household and community aspirations. Decisions to cultivate tapioca have contributed to aspects of community development and increasing political agency on the part of villagers.

The political ecology of dietary transitions: Changing production and consumption patterns in the Kolli Hills, India

“…There are increasing demands for market goods and commodities including jewelry, electricity, electronic goods, and private English-language or Tamil-language school education for children. This is often discussed by villagers in terms of aspirations and projects aimed at becoming ''developed'' and more like people who live in lowland towns (Finnis, 2006). The past is described as a time when people did not need much money and ate well, but the present is understood as a time of high cash demands and food monotony.…”

Reimagining marginalized foods: global processes, local places

“…" Infrastructure, access to services, income generation, and dietary practices are all linked here, with rice consumption becoming inevitably associated with processes of social change and integration with national road and food system networks. As I have argued elsewhere (Finnis 2008), when millets become associated with economic poverty, underdevelopment, and behaviors and lifestyles that are perceived as unsophisticated, the grains themselves become understood as inherently inferior and disadvantageous crops. Yet, such low-status associations are not absolute.…”

“…Rather, it is sold to sago-starch factories in the lowlands surrounding the hills for use as a food thickener and in the textile industry. Even with fl uctuations in market prices and annual yields, the regular income from cassava has allowed farmers to engage in new forms of consumer activities (Finnis 2006). Farmers use their cassava income for a variety of purposes, including obtaining higher levels of education for their children; making home improvements and new houses; purchasing goods such as clothes, kitchen supplies, and electronic goods; and contributing to some community projects.…”

“Now it is an Easy Life”: Women's Accounts of Cassava, Millets, and Labor in South India

“…Yet millets have become increasingly scarce throughout the Hills. This decline reflects changes to local livelihood practices that focus on increasing engagements with the market economy, as well as government attempts to improve food security through the introduction of rice cultivation (Bohle 1992; Finnis 2006; Rajasekaran and Warren 1994). Results have been twofold.…”

“…In Thakkali Nadu, the cash crop of choice is sweet cassava. As I have discussed elsewhere (Finnis 2006), farmers articulate this preference in two primary ways. Cassava is constructed as a crop that can be grown during a time of rainfall uncertainty, providing some degree of livelihood security; as farmers put it, cassava allows them to “have a job,” even when rainfall patterns are erratic, and even if the crop and harvests are not ideal 2 .…”