Inter-Community Dialogue Around Rice: From Kokrajhar Workshop
The Kokrajhar workshop on rice revealed how urbanization and ‘modern’ non-agricultural lifestyle is putting pressure on the practice of rice cultivation. The space for transmitting indigenous knowledge system is shrinking and rice as a site of knowledge and meaning is being challenged, though it continues to be the main staple in the region. With growing number of younger people migrating to urban areas looking for job opportunities and the gradual spread of urbanization process, the biggest challenge is how to sustain productivitity. This is also linked with the way agricural pracices are done using high yeilding hybrid varieties and fertilizer that can be critical for the soil quality in long run. Important questions arising out of the workshop related to land, labour, gender, economy and socio-political dimensions that necessarily are linked with the complexities of community sense of identity and political economy.
Kokrajhar
Assam
India