Contract Farming, Capital and State

The book argues that an increasing corporatisation of agriculture in India that is enabled by its neoliberal State, in the name of 'development', is contributing towards deepening of inequality in the rural India. It says that Contract Farming (CF) acts as a conduit that enables the coming together of myriad production relations (mercantile, finance, productive) to sell agri-commodities to the capitalist peasant. ****It is an accumulation strategy that brings together various factions of domestic and foreign capital together. It shows that CF as an accumulation strategy is enabled by an active interventionist state and this neoliberal Indian state mediates the relation between the agri-capital and Indian peasantry. The book further analyzes contract farming as a part of the totality of the capitalist mode of production in context of developing countries with a large agrarian base--- asking three fundamental questions what is CF, how and why is it done and what are the implications of it.

Shows how Contract Farming acts as a conduit enabling the accumulation of myriad production relations (mercantile, finance, productive) to sell agri-commodities to the capitalist peasant Discusses the case of corporate capital led Contract Farming as an accumulation strategy in India Critical analysis of the Indian State mediating the corporate hijack of agrarian production

Autorentext

**Dr Ritika Shrimali** teaches at the Center for Global Studies at Huron University College, Western University, Ontario, Canada. She specialises in development studies and agrarian political economy.

Inhalt
1: Introduction and Rethinking Contract Farming.- 2: Punjab: An Interesting place to study Agrarian Change .- 3: Understanding the Social Relations of Contract Farming .- 4: Stating the (not so) obvious: The 'Interventionist Neoliberal State' in India.- 5: Understanding CF: CF as a strategy to enable dispossession-free accumulation strategy.- 6:Implications of CF 01: Technology Rhetoric in Contract Farming.- 7: Implications 02: Social Effects of Contract Farming.- 8: Conclusion: Are the Global Agri-Corporates saving the Third World Peasantry?.