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| View of Annapurna Range from Nepal's site, Pokhara |
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| A click from DHAN's field trial |
At the end of 2012, the year 2013 is
already knocking the door to enter into the life. This is a good occasion to
sit down and reflect on the year 2012. My 2012 remained busy with significant
field visits in South Asia, attending workshops, conferences, meetings and
student seminars in Canada and South Asia. Most of my time in 2012 was spent
travelling to Indian states of Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Odisha, and
Jharkhand and to different field sites in Nepal and I had small amount of time
to spend in my offices in Winnipeg.
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| Project half yearly meeting at Coimbatore, India |
The exciting part started from my
engagement with the big IDRC/CIDA funded small millets revalorization project in
South Asia through an initiative called Canadian International Food Security
Research Fund (CIFSRF). My involvement with this mega project was later
supplemented with the individual funding I secured from Social Sciences and
Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) of Canada.
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| Project team members and my supervisors after the meeting reception held at Guelph |
At this juncture, I would like to thank my host universities (University of Manitoba and Canadian Mennonite University) in Winnipeg, donors (IDRC, CIDA and SSHRC) in Canada and the local partner organizations (LIBIRD in Nepal, DHAN Foundation in India and Arthacharya Foundation in Sri Lanka). Special thanks go to my supervisors Dr. Kirit Patel and Dr. Derek Johnson, the team members led
by Dr. Kirit Patel, Canadian Mennonite, University, Winnipeg, Canada and Mr. M. Karthikeyan, DHAN Foundation, Madurai, India and Mr. Kamal Khadka, LIBIRD, Pokhara, Nepal.
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| Invited speaker at GCWA, New Delhi |
Apart from being a member of the large
project of revolarizing small millets in South Asia, in 2012, I conducted a
survey among 210 households (140 in India and 70 in Nepal), 11 focus group
discussions and some 25 individual in-depth interviews in the three project
site. Data entry and data organization are underway, but at this point I can share
the field observations on food security and wellbeing of smallholder farmers in
South Asia in the context of labour out-migration. It will also enable me to
guide myself for the year 2013, which I will be spending on data analysis,
preparing research briefs, giving seminars and writing papers on the issues
that I have observed in the field.
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| Meeting with DHAN colleagues at Krishnagiri, Tamil Nadu |
Based
on my field visit in 2012, the preliminary observations or the outline of my
work are mainly under the three themes: 1) public policy and food security of
small holders, 2) Pathways of transmission of indigenous knowledge and its
consequence in sustainable agricultural development, and 3) Gender roles and
relations in the contemporary societal changes in rural South Asia. In all the
three themes, wellbeing will be used as lens to look at the situation. As
research is an evolving process, other themes and issues will be accommodated
as and when discovered.
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| An interview session, Anchetty, Tamil Nadu |
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| Research assistant at work: Survey interview session |
Some highlighted issues are that labour
out-migration is one of the major livelihood strategies adopted by rural
people; agricultural sector is becoming a neglected sector; youth’s orientation
away from agriculture; decreasing livestock population leading to soil
degradation; high objective wellbeing, but low subjective wellbeing among the
people left behind by migrant workers; and changing women’s position due to
migration of their husbands causes differences in gender roles and relations.
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| A click from LIBIRD's field trial |
Finally, I would like to thank you, as a reader of my blog. I will keep updating with the new insights evolved during the process of data analysis. I wish you a new year full of new and interesting adventures in the year 2013!
