Resources, greenhouse gases, technology and jobs in India's informal economy the case of rice

Resources, greenhouse gases, technology and jobs in India's informal economy the case of rice

This is a pilot project, under the ESRC-DFID’s Poverty Alleviation call, which was funded from October 2011 to June 2014 and in practice is ongoing. It seeks to contribute to research on low carbon transitions. It develops a set of micro-level methods which measure, integrate and examine existing and future trade-offs between economic, social and environmental aspects of sectors of the economy that are poorly regulated by the state, do not have good official statistics and must be researched through first-hand field-work in the informal economy.

 

Cross-cutting research on informality involved fieldwork on the informalisation of policy; on innovation in the informal economy; and on the ways informal workers make gains.

 

The methods - fusing Life Cycle assessment, Supply Chain Analysis and Multi-Criteria Mapping - can be usefully applied elsewhere, including in advanced economies.

Project Summary

Brief Summary of the Project

This is an ESRC-DFID funded pilot project, contributing to research on low carbon transitions. It develops a set of micro-level methods that can be usefully applied elsewhere, including in advanced economies. Informal economies, however, have been completely neglected in the debates about climate change and the long awaited materials revolution. Yet in S Asia alone, India’s informal economy accounts for roughly 60% GDP and 9 out of every 10 jobs.  Statistical information about the informal economy is poor and unsystematic – necessitating research that is field-based.

Official policy engages with the informal economy at best directly and in ways that are relatively poorly understood. In addition, policy itself is known to be permeated by informal politics.

How a low carbon transition might engage with informality is the question at the heart of this pilot.

This project develops a series of methods for the first-hand study of the materiality of the informal economy. We focus on greenhouse gases (GHGs) (in CO2e), energy and water as indicators of materiality, on labour conditions and on the structure of costs and profits.

Our case studies are rice production-distribution systems (intensive, SRI, rainfed and organic production; plus the partially regulated, private, post-harvest system; supermarket supply chains; and the state’s public distribution system) in three states of India: Odisha, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu.

Rice was chosen not because it is regarded as a big polluter (though when the entire food system is combined with land-based activity they may together account for some 33—45% of global greenhouse gas emissions) but because of the research team’s familiarity with this sector, its complexity both in terms of social organisation and GHG emissions, the poor quality of much employment associated with its production and distribution and the fact that its production-distribution systems weave in and out of the informal economy.

So as well as developing transferable methodologies, the project contributes new substantive knowledge about the rice system.

The methods fuse Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) with Value or Supply Chain Analysis (VCA/SCA). Then, having thereby identified labour blackspots and GHG hotspots, Multi-Criteria Mapping (MCM) enables an interactive public consultation with stakeholders about options to reduce GHGs, change the nature of work, and retain profitability.

Our methodological contribution is thus ‘LCA-VCA-MCM’.

It has a great potential for flexibility in further applications.

Aims and Methodology

Modern Retail

The project is modelling the complexity of rice production and distribution systems.

Four distinctive production technologies and four channels of distribution, involving market and state – formal and informal economic and policy activities -  are being researched.

Production Systems:

· System of Rice Intensification (SRI)   -   in Andhra Pradesh

· Certified organic production   -   In Tamil Nadu

· Rainfed rice   -   in Odiha

· Intensive irrigated High Yield Varieties (HYV)   -   in Tamil Nadu

Distribution channels:

· Registered and partly regulated partly informal firms

· Supermarket supply chains

· India’s Public Distribution System (PDS)

-        all in Tamil Nadu.

This part of the project merges life cycle analysis (environmental science) with supply or value chain analysis (economics and management sciences).

The supply chain is being analysed in accounting (‘market’) prices but also in ‘social’ prices which un-distort subsidies and imperfections and show ‘true’ shadow prices of the activity and its environmental externalities.

Then, through scoping research and multi-criteria analysis/mapping, we have rigorously compared incommensurable trade-offs between costs, CO2 and the quantity and quality of jobs for alternatives which reduce GHGs and/or improve jobs.

Three cross-cutting themes also thread their way through this pilot project. They are needed because the methods from science and business do not allow for questions about informality in the economy and policy. They also require first-hand fieldwork to address and their general arguments are developed from case studies.

First we examine how technological innovation diffuses in the informal economy beyond state regulation. We need to research this question in order to examine whether, if India were to embark on  a low carbon transition, the fact that most  activity isn’t registered would hinder the diffusion of the innovations that would be necessary.

Second, we ask both how policies affect economic activity outside the politicised limits to their enforcement; and how official policies are affected by political and economic informality. These questions need researching first in order to contribute to unravelling aspects of the existing ‘unintended consequences’ of policy and second to suggest the kinds of institutional traps that technocratic policy formulation may not factor in as conditions for the successful implementation of policy.

Third, we ask whether and how workers in the informal economy are able to improve the terms and conditions of their work. The reason for this cross-cutting research is as follows.  Almost all workers in the informal economy – and a majority of workers inside formally registered firms – are not unionised. So the micro-political mechanisms by which the labour force improves its earnings and conditions and the shift in the distributive share way from labour and towards profits is resisted are of great importance if the low-carbon transition is also to address poverty – as both the UN and the G7 declare it should.

Impact Diary

The project identified and engaged with key stakeholders in technology-industry, policy-politics and research-education.

It communicates its results in India, the UK and globally, through four methods.

First, through a network of experts from the three stakeholder fields and the 9 knowledge fields that are developing independently but which are integrated in this research.

Second, through meetings, presentations, dissemination, training and ‘learning workshop’ events.

Third, through this website that contains the model methodology –and other results – in the form of working papers.

Fourth, through academic publications.

We count the research successful if it provokes further developments and applications to other sectors and countries.

All the impact activities from October 2011- June 2015 are described in the Project's Impact Diary below with an update of activities since June 2015 in the Impact Update 2016 and the Impact Update 2017.

For further discussions of the method contact Alfy Gathorne-Hardy on alfred.gathorne-hardy@area.ox.ac.uk or alfy_gh@yahoo.com

This is a pilot project ( RES-167-25-MTRUYG0 ; ES/1033768/1 )

funded by ESRC-DFID under their Poverty Alleviation stream http://www.esrc.ac.uk/funding-and-guidance/funding-opportunities/international-funding/esrc-dfid/.

It has been devoted to developing new methods measuring, fusing and analysing trade-offs between environmental, social and economic parameters for parts of an economy that are ‘informal’: out of direct policy control and usually very poorly measured.

The substantive case study is of a series of production-distribution systems in the Indian rice economy.

Cross cutting themes include the politics of labour gains and of innovation in the informal economy and the informalisation of policy.

Practical policy implications were tested in a consultative  multi-criteria application.

Definition of impact in our proposal

– short term – on learning (through feedback/dissemination workshops; website; correspondence and networking; conference presentations; publications)

– longer term – on new applications and collaborations ( through interactive collaboration ; networking and workshops; successful new proposals and research initiatives).

Our jointly agreed philosophy of impact

 –  to expose the project to outside feedback and engagement  with three user groups from start ( policy (P);  food governance/ rice/ innovation (R); advocacy, activist, research and education (AE); while ensuring that results are not presented prematurely.

-         to talk to politicians and not only to policy-makers.

-         to expose wide audiences to the method including research minded journalists.

-         to have a direct public impact through the Multi Criteria Mapping experiment.

-         to nurture and develop individual capacities for possible future applications.

Measurement of impact

– short term and long term: public engagement / learning opportunities and

-         long term : further applications and further developments

There are ten aspects to our achieved impact activity: 1. Activity throughout the life of the project (four kinds of activity); 2. Major international conference; 3. Teaching ourselves with others (four kinds); 4. Impact through H E teaching and learning; 5. Impact with civil society; 6. Longer term follow-up ; 7. Conference presentations; 8. Seminars and special lectures; 9. Discussions; 10 Publications.

1.ACTIVITY THROUGHOUT THE LIFE OF THE PROJECT

1.1.EXPERT NETWORK -  worldwide network of expertise and advice is under continual development – currently numbering about 700 experts -  many meetings and discussions  - e – and real - with experts on this network.  Deployed for advice, peer review  and dissemination. Dissemination through the network takes the form of nested abstracts: 100 words -> 500 words -> link to entire paper/report in site of publication and will also be trialled in 2015 through Facebook.

Indian Partner: the Institute of Human Development in New Delhi has responsibility for the network and dissemination. http://www.ihdindia.org/

March 2013 +  D Narasimha Reddy and B Harriss-White recruited as Members of the Advisory Council for the RRA Network(Revitalising Rainfed Agriculture) -  chair: Prof Rajeswari Raina National Institute of Science, Technology and Development Studies (NISTADS - CSIR), New Delhi ). 2015: A Gathorne Hardy  (AGH) and B Harriss-White (BHW) recruited to START Network - "Adaptation at Scale in Semi-Arid Regions (ASSAR)" linked to RRA;  

 also see long term follow up – and policy – below.  

April 2013 WIEGO, Harvard  – BHW is recruited as member of WIEGO network of informal economy experts on the basis inter alia of the contribution of this project to their agenda.

1.2.ENGAGEMENT WITH JOURNALISTS  AND MEDIA

Fairly constant contact with rural affairs / science journalists: Economic Times; Frontline; Hindu; Times of India; Scroll.in 

Nov 2011

Press release Oxford University – taken up in UK and in India; Nature Climate Change write up;

http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/v2/n5/full/nclimate1501.html  

January 2013 Climate Change news write-up

http://www.dailyclimate.org/tdc-newsroom/2013/01/india-climate-challenge

http://www.climatenewsnetwork.net/category/development-issues/page/3/

http://www.climatenewsnetwork.net/category/development-issues/page/3/

February 2013  Le Monde Commodities section :  rice and sustainability (AGH)

August 2013: advice to Sci dev net http://www.scidev.net/en/science-and-innovation-policy/the-challenge-of-science-and-ngo-practice-joining-forces/features/science-and-ngo-practice-facts-and-figures.html

October 2013 Aseem Prakash used  his field knowledge of informal economy and policy in Op Ed in the Hindu ‘A development index with missing links’ Published: October 22, 2013 02:47 IST | Updated: October 22, 2013 02:47 IST

November 2013 ESRC press release prepared by Judith Oliver jao@joliver.demon.co.uk

 http://www.wired-gov.net/wg/wg-news-1.nsf/0/893FC0937BCCECE380257C950032...

July 4th 2014 Aseem Prakash used his knowledge of informal politics, policy and caste in an article in The Hindu. http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-opinion/empowerment-without-wellbeing/article6178959.ece

July 14th 2014  B Harriss-White published a letter on the Indian Government’s 2014 Budget’s, para 102, on the informal economy – in the Hindu  http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/letters/informal-economy/article6214341.ece

and in ‘Oxford University Research Coverage’ internal news bulletin for 16th July 2014.

Reaction fed back from  a city and regional planner “Your piece in the op-ed is needless to say, very powerful.  We have been interacting with the DIPP (Dept of Indl Policy and Planning) almost on a weekly basis. I will read it out to them in order to address concerns in our projects and policy.”

This led to a request to write on informal economy  for Yojana, the Planning Ministry’s monthly journal which is translated into all major languages and has circulation of over 200,000. Only non-Indian in the recent records. 

‘Top story’ in October 2014http://yojana.gov.in/topstory_details.asp?storyid=581

2014: The project is showcased in Oxford University’s International Strategy team’s 2014 brochure on Oxford-India relations.

2015: a further set of pan-Indian journalists linked through Facebook

Planned: a popular article by Prof Deepak Mishra on the project’s findings in Oriya and English for Down to Earth

1.3. ENGAGEMENT WITH POLITICIANS

2011-14: meetings with Four Rajya Sabha MPs;  three cabinet ministers, one MP,  Lok Sabha;  the Vice President of the Indian National Congress. 

1.4.WEBSITE – full details of the project: http://www.southasia.ox.ac.uk/resources-greenhouse-gases-technology-and-jobs-indias-informal-economy-case-rice

18 working papers, almost all of which have been peer reviewed and revised as of June 2015:

http://www.southasia.ox.ac.uk/working-papers-resources-greenhouse-gases-technology-and-jobs-indias-informal-economy-case-rice

2013 ‘Conference Book’:

http://www.southasia.ox.ac.uk/oxford-ihd-conference-new-delhi-june-13th-14th

2.   MAJOR INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE – June 2013 – co-organised with the Institute for Human Development, New Delhi – 67 participants  -  drawn from all three impact groups - opened by Minister for Science and Technology Mr Jaipal Reddy and closed by the IPCC chair Dr Rajendra Pachauri http://www.southasia.ox.ac.uk/oxford-ihd-conference-new-delhi-june-13th-14th

3.TEACHING OURSELVES WITH OTHERS

3.1.LEARNING WORKSHOPS

An innovative concept of ‘learning workshops’ has been created and developed for this project. See the project website for the pedagogical principles of learning workshops:

http://www.southasia.ox.ac.uk/learning-workshop-materiality-rice-world-institute-sustainable-energy-pune-and-contemporary-south

1.  in Pune, India (host: World Institute for Sustainable Energy –Feb, 2011) ‘The materiality of rice: multiple scientific fields’  (12 participants – drawn from all 3 impact groups). WISE and Oxford compiled an 800 page Workshop Book of published readings from 12 academic subfields across social and environmental sciences.

2. Mulshi, India (host: Anthra/ Crompton Greaves Management Development  Centre  – Nov, 2013)  ‘Research Methods in Science’   (10 participants – academics, NGO professionals, journalists)

3. Somerville College, Oxford, March 2014,  International Impact learning workshop:: ‘Caste and Waste’ (15 participants – academics from science and social science)

spin-offs: 1. Wolfson College, Oxford (British Council, Jan 2012)  also co-developed for an environmental project with the Solvay Business School, Brussels: ‘Ecological crisis and micro-finance’ (20 participants)

2) Oxford-India Sustainable Development Centre, being planned for late 2015: ‘Economic policy and party politics in India’

3.2. LEARNING BY DOING

Deepak Mishra (JNU) trains 5 graduate researchers in LCA-VCA field methods. 

D Narasimha Reddy (NIRD) trains two;

Hema (MSE) trains one.

The Centre for Workers’ Management trains a team of seven in field research on retail workers.  Impact: Mohan Mani of CWM writes “(t)his satisfied an important capacity-building objective of the project, to enable women activists in the informal sector to gain first-hand experience of conducting surveys and doing basic research”

Alfred Gathorne Hardy and Barbara Harriss-White (Oxford) train and collaborate with Gilbert Rodrigo, an already seasoned fieldworker and NGO activist.

MCMapping. This is a technique never previously used in rural India -  with an immediate impact from field interviews on

1. Dalit activists. These are engaged in village level conscientisation and empowerment among dalits in southern TN  - interest in MCM for future local evaluation of policies for dalits.

2.  The field method is to be translated into Tamil and is being intended to be used for environment activist work and research-minded journalism.

3. An NGO, GUIDE, was provided with research material from SPRU, Sussex University that is used in the MCMapping research. GUIDE intends to apply the method to gender and development and fishing contexts. Varied village-level applications envisaged.

4. A postgraduate research assistant is trained in the software.

3.3. HELPING OTHERS TO LEARN THROUGH FEEDBACK-DISSEMINATION WORKSHOPS

November  2012: Over 90 people drawn from all the three impact groups  we defined in our original proposal learn about LCA-VCA-MCM methods and the results for rice, in Pune, Hyderabad and Chennai.

http://www.southasia.ox.ac.uk/two-work-progress-workshops-resources-greenhouse-gas-emissions-technology-and-work-production

In Pune, via the livestock NGO Anthra,  10 NGO and university experts in industrial technology, ecology and environmental science, livestock plus an environmental journalist and writer discussed the methods used in our research.

In Hyderabad, at the National Institute of Rural Development , DNR, MV,  AGH , DM, MM, GM, BHW use the project to educate and train 40 experts in rural development from local universities, NGOs, state research institutions, ICRISAT and think tanks at the inaugural workshop under the Sankaran Chair of Labour Studies. Team member Prof  D Narasimha Reddy.

At the Madras School of Economics – another audience of 40 from the Madras Institute of Development Studies, IITMadras, Centre for Development Alternatives, Gandhian Unit for Development Education,  Asian College of Journalism , TN Planning Commission, TN Civil Supplies Corporation,  Centre for Indian Knowledge Systems, Akash Ganga (Pvt)Ltd.

June 2013 Climate Justice Coalition, New Delhi : a half-day workshop on the project results with  30 NGO, trade union and civil society movement activists.

3.4. HELPING OTHERS TO LEARN THROUGH SHORT COURSE/TRAINING WORKSHOP

Sep-Oct 2013: We did not locate life cycle analysts in India interested in social science applications until meeting Dr Vinod Sharma of IGIDR after the end of the project. Meanwhile we learned from the experience of the dissemination workshops (above) that social scientists become aware of the potential of the new methods we have developed but cannot use them without further training.

Team member, Prof Deepak Mishra of JNU therefore organised a Workshop on “Using Life Cycle Assessment and a Systems Approach to Sustainability” at the Centre for the Study of Regional Development, School of Social Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University jointly with Oxford University.

The five day event ran from 27th Sept-1st Oct’13.

A total of 59 young researchers and faculty from diverse disciplines such as geography, population studies, environmental science, economics, science policy studies, business management, urban study and veterinary science participated in the workshop, and working in more than 10 different institutions from different parts of India participated in the programme.

Several applications of the LCA-VCA method are expected.

Unsolicited feedback:

Vibha (Assoc Prof from IITD) to AGH:  “ It was a memorable great learning workshop...you are really inspiring and I realized how much I miss Oxford when you led us on this learning journey. I am in the nomination-running for the Buttel award for my research in environmental sociology for 2014 International Sociology Association conference at Yokohama....but I think I will deserve it better when I write a methodological paper on how to combine LCA with HDI, Quality of Life indicators for comprehensive policy planning. I already have experimented with GIS, HDI and Quality of Life indicators during a student’s  PhD thesis which is upcoming as I mentioned....so here I am raring to go forward and do something inter-disciplinary and meaningful.”

Prof D Mishra (JNU):

“Many of the participants seemed very excited and happy at the end. Alfy conducted the workshop in a new way. I had suggested that Alfy should use our project data as a template and demonstrate the steps of calculation after covering the conceptual part. In addition Alfy divided participants into groups and encouraged them to come up with their own proposals - from topic to methods and steps. Alfy discussed the steps and data with these relatively smaller groups. Because they were not ready with the topics or the data available to them, they did not complete the LCA during the workshop, but in the end they learnt more than they would have learnt otherwise. The kind of proposals the group presented were diverse - LCA of a handmade poster in JNU, PDS procurement from Punjab to Bihar versus local procurement, electricity, wheat....”

4. IMPACT THROUGH H.E. TEACHING

Aseem Prakash, 2011 - 2014, Assistant Dean, Public Policy, Jindal Global  UniversityM.A. in Public Policy   ‘The research framework developed during the course of the research projects for understanding regulation both through policy and in the informal economy was used to teach post graduate students in public policy in their core course entitled State, Markets and Regulations.  The project’s policy case studies of Transport and Rice Mills have been adapted for class room teaching and students encouraged to develop new case studies of their choice to reconceive the ‘blurred boundaries’ between formal and informal institutions as a political space in which informal institutions regulate and influence formal regulatory apparatuses’.

from 2014: Prof Aseem Prakash, Dean of the School of Public Policy and Governance,  Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Hyderabad Campus.

In the informalisation stream of research in this pilot project, Prof Aseem Prakash explored policy regimes for rice with a case study close to his then place of work on the outskirts of New Delhi in Haryana, starting with land.

He found i) official subsidy policy informalised in implementation caste, ethnicity, class and gender identities playing economic regulatory roles;  and ii) rice farmers had diversified into transport and real estate – hence these sectors were also researched. In all three cases, neo-liberal new policy management the formal regulatory apparatus is repeatedly breached by informal norms and social practices in a deliberate politics of policy involving ideas, regulation, execution, monitoring, capture and judicial intervention. The great variety of outcomes of policy on the ground reflects the local balance of power between the state and local social structure (social groups/ powerful individuals/ big corporate capital).

This new understanding of regulation in the neo-liberal era where markets are considered to be supremely efficient and unadulterated by social identity, informal institutions, patron –client relationship etc. has fed directly into the development of a distinctive stream (a ‘Policy Area Concentration’ (PAC)) of postgraduate teaching (with compulsory dissertation research involving up to 4 months’ fieldwork) in Public Policy and Governance.

An entire PAC: ‘Regulation and Institutions’ has been developed from the ESRC-DFID project’s theoretical and empirical work. It consists of three courses:  1. History and Perspectives on Policy and Regulation; 2. ‘Small Town Capitalism’; and 3. ‘Big Policy Sectors’.

In 2014/15 it  has been the most popular PAC in TISS’s Masters in Public Policy. Dissertations are being written on topics like land, waste management, housing, electricity etc using the framework for the informalisation of policy developed under the research project.

Jan-Feb 2013 Alfy Gathorne-Hardy: developed and delivered a post-graduate (masters) option course in Food Security, Oxford University Centre for the Environment

Prof Hema, Madras School of Economics.  Our project is comparative and  Hema has taught about methodologies that could be used to compare production-distribution systems to students on Madras School of Economic’s  MSc in Economics.  At MSE, the Director of CIKS (Centre for Indigenous Knowledge Systems) which has developed close links with our project in Tamil Nadu has presented to masters’ economics students the kind of development work CIKS is doing in the context of organic cultivation.

As a result one master’s student has compared costs and returns for organic and control HYV farmers in 5 districts of Tamil Nadu (where CIKS has its centres) and evaluates the economic value-addition in his dissertation.

The larger objective is a policy framework of organic agriculture competing with subsidies to HYVs.

5. IMPACT WITH CIVIL SOCIETY

1. 2012-13:  Two women worker-activists in the informal sector in Chennai were trained on the project to manage and conduct survey research on employment and conditions of work. Five other women activists participated in training-discussions about the retail sector.

 2. 2011-13: In Chennai, initial contacts were made with women workers in large retail sector (4 large retail supermarkets in Chennai) through the Women Workers’ Union.  Details of employment conditions, especially for women employed in large and medium supermarkets, will also be of critical importance when the union takes up organising in the sector.

 3. In New Delhi, the project was invited to meet and discuss the research with the India Climate Justice Network (ICJN), an informal network of professionals and activists engaged with climate change issues, on June 11th 2013 in Delhi. This was an opportunity to discuss and take forward some of the issues in the study, especially around climate impact of rice cultivation, and the validity of a methodology trying to bring together different disciplines of environment, value chains and labour rights.

4. 2013, in Tamil Nadu, the Centre for Indigenous Knowledge Systems  - CIKS -  is interested in developing an in-depth study comparing the economics and resource use patterns of organic rice cultivation with that of intensive HYVs using the LCA-VCA approach.

March 2015: Invitation by Ecorys and IDS Sussex to participate in the survey to evaluate the impact of the ESRC-DFID Joint Fund for Poverty Alleviation.

May 2015  - Presentation of project concepts at ‘LiveFriday’ showcasing interdisciplinarity in social sciences at the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford –  about 3000 visitors.

May 2015: Invitation by Imperial College, Centre for Business Research, Judge Business School University of Cambridge and University of Bath School of Management to participate in research on the engagement of HE institutions with  external private public and charitable organisations funded / commissioned by RCUK, Dept of BIS and HEFCE.

See also sections 3.2 Learning by Doing and 3.3. Dissemination and Feedback

6. LONGER TERM FOLLOW-UP

2013 +  Prof D Narasimha Reddy who organised the SRI research in AP  also collected data on the declining use of labour in agriculture and incorporated it into a project on small farmer agrarian development  forming  part of the new programme of the Sankaran  Chair, Centre for Agrarian and Labour Studies, NIRD, Hyderabad.  http://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/49204/1/MPRA_paper_49204.pdf

The team in AP also used the opportunity of the project’s fieldwork to assess the problems associated with the introduction and expansion of methods which require augmenting the knowledge base of the community.   

From the perspective of policy, the findings on the various aspects of the process of adoption are likely to be helpful in evolving an appropriate strategy for expansion of SRI, which goes beyond the mandate of the scientific findings on GHGs in rice cultivation. Links have been made by BHW and AGH with Prof Shambu Prasad, Xavier Institute of Management Bhubaneswar, Prof Norman Uphoff, Cornell University, Prof Willem Stoop, Wageningen and the three doctoral students examining SRI at Wageningen.

Reddy has showcased the project results in conferences on SRI held in India in 2014 and 2015. In June 2015, he writes: ‘There is a lot happening in SRI (Systems of Rice Intensification) and there is a series of regular reports on these developments which are the results of several hundred researchers (and in this case activists as well). Our research is contributing to this work stream. 

March 2013Deepak Mishra who organised the Rainfed Rice research in Orissa applies to ICSSR for follow-up project on backward agriculture, expanded to three states. (Successful proposal)

May 2013: Capacity building and research outcome: Oxford-India Centre for Sustainable Development:  £3m gift from Government of India was signed and delivered to Somerville college, Oxford University, liberating equal matching funds from Somerville and from Oxford University for  postgraduate scholarships in Indian sustainability sciences in the name of Indira Gandhi.

From inception P-I, BHW was directly involved in the preparation of this project (contact Somerville Principal Alice Prochaska). Co-I, Alfred Gathorne-Hardy has been recruited competitively as the first Research Director from January 2014; BHW is recruited to advisory committee: Oxford-India Centre for Sustainable Development.

http://www.some.ox.ac.uk/6151/all/1/The_Oxford_India_Centre_for_Sustaina...

July 2013-15 Aseem Prakash (responsible for the field research on the informalisation of policy and the regulation of the informal economy) applied to ICSSR for a follow-up project on the informalisation of policy (all applications currently frozen however)).

October 2013 and ongoing:   Champaka Rajagopal,  Principal, (architect and planner) Urban Development,  Egis India Consulting Engineers Pvt. Ltd. and International Institute for Human Settlements, Bangalore,) who has expressed interest in, and engaged with,  the research on informality from the outset, is accepted to read for a doctorate at Amsterdam University with Prof ISA Baud (President of EADI) – developing applications of this project’s  methods to the Indian construction industry and the informal practices of city and regional planning.

Champaka also uses Aseem Prakash’s field research : feedback:  “We are shortlisted on one of the largest green field development projects in India - the Delhi Mumbai, Bangalore Mumbai and Bangalore Chennai industrial/ economic corridors (freight and expressway). The project … has great ambition but is ridden with challenges pertaining to the messiness on the ground of various informal dimensions - land, labour- skill, logistics, infrastructure. I think Aseem Prakash's work highlights many of these challenges so well and is really helpful!”

Summer 2014 and ongoing: A new round of Life Cycle Assessment applications requiring field evidence - supervised by AGH. [ case studies: weaving technologies (handloom versus power-loom) (Karnataka) / fishing technologies (inland and coastal) (Tamil Nadu) / livestock intensification (Maharashtra)]

2015: Sumanas Koulagi – Janapada Seva Trust, Mandya, Karnataka: under guidance from AGH is to develop LCA-VCA for GHGs, costs and livelihoods  in handloom weaving (Khadi) and powerloom weaving – fieldwork 2014-5 and a PhD proposal.

June 2015:   Hari Om Dubey, Executive Director , CureIndia (‘Clean Up & Recycle for Environment’)  cure.org.in@gmail.com is developing an initiative on e-waste for the Government of India’s ‘Swachh Bharat’ and has approached the PI and Co-I with a view to developing a LCA for e-waste in the informal economy.

7. CONFERENCE PRESENTATIONS

Feb 2012  Institute of Economic Growth, New Delhi:  Green Economics  Conference, with IPCC economists (Hema, AGH and BHW)

Oct 2012 First Annual Meeting of the Agriculture Ecology Group, British Ecological Association. Oral presentation: What is Sustainable Agriculture, case study of rice in India. (AGH)

April 2013  Oxford University : Future of Food Conference (AGH)

April 2013. Global Change and Biosphere Interactions Conference. “Oxen vs tractors, manure vs urea from the GHG and economic perspective” (AGH)

 July 2013   Beijing Normal University and International Development and Public Policy Alliance, Beijing, China, International Conference on “Life in a New Global City”, paper Presented on Small Town Capitalism: The Limits of Formal Regulation (Aseem Prakash).

August  2013 Technology and Management for Development (TMD) Centre, University of Oxford National Entrepreneurship Research Centre, / and Tsinghua University  Research Centre for Technological Innovation, Tsinghua University , China, 6thAnnual Conference of the Academy of Innovation and Entrepreneurship Innovation and Entrepreneurship for Inclusive and Sustainable Development. Paper on ‘Innovation in the informal economy’ (BHW)

2013, Living with Environmental Change, conference on negative emission technologies; http://www.lwec.org.uk/events/public/oxford-negative-emmission-technologies-conference (AGH)

September 2013 ClimUrb Conference Manchester University  on ‘Urban Poverty and Climate Change’ paper on ‘Innovation in the informal economy’ (BHW)

November 2013 University of Penn South Asia Centre and Wharton School , USA, conference on ‘ India as a Pioneer of Innovation: Constraints and Opportunities:  paper on ‘Innovation in the informal economy (BHW)

November 2013 Jeevika and Wolfson College, Oxford  workshop on  ‘The Dilemma for Rural India’ paper Appropriate Technology for Indian Agriculture. (AGH) https://www.wolfson.ox.ac.uk/SARC/events/symposium-dilemma-rural-india-urbanisation-or-village-prosperity

December 2013 Sud Asien Institut, Heidelberg Germany, conference on ‘Cultivating Futures: Ethnographies of Alternative Agriculture in South Asian Landscapes paper:  EXPERT KNOWLEDGE AND SITUATED KNOWLEDGE – A MULTI-CRITERIA MAPPING OF TRADE-OFFS IN TECHNOLOGY OPTIONS IN RICE PRODUCTION IN INDIA’S SEMI ARID TROPICS (BHW/AGH/GR).

January 2014 Pondicherry  University , Conference on ‘Agrarian Transitions’, paper on  ‘Multi Criteria Mapping’ – as above (BHW/AGH/GR)

February 2014Jawaharlal Nehru UniversityCentre for Informal Sector and Labour Studies, Franco-Indian conference on informal labour Jawaharlal Nehru University: Keynote address: ‘Informal Labour and Production’  (BHW)

March 2014, Cambridge University, CRASSH, conference  on ‘Institutions and their Discontents’  - keynote paper on ‘Innovation and institutions’ (BHW)

June 2014, Gottingen University, Germany: conference on Informal Business in India; paper: ‘Local capital in the Tamil Nadu Rice economy 1973-2013’ (BHW)

June 2014 Oxford Brookes University,  Business School: International Research Collaboration Day – Keynote speaker:  Towards a lower carbon future : multi-disciplinary, cross-generational  and international collaboration (BHW)

http://business.brookes.ac.uk/research/collaborations/

August  2014, Royal Geographical Society: annual conference of the IBG ‘Geographies of co-production’: Paper : ‘Innovation in the informal economy’ (BHW);

September 2014, Manchester University: conference for the 50th anniversary of the Journal of Development Studies: paper on ‘Climate change, agriculture and livelihoods’ (BHW)

September 2014 International Institute of Dalit Studies, New Delhi:  10th anniversary conference, JNU, New Delhi,  – keynote address – ‘Caste in the informal economy’ (BHW)

September 2014 ESRC_DFID Impact conference – participation (AGH)

October 2014. IARU Copenhagen.  Sustainability Science Congress: Global Challenges, achieving sustainability, “Trade-offs - understanding the sustainability of Indian rice from field to finger” (AGH)  “Caste as a driver of environmental change” (AGH)

November 7-9th  2014 SOAS, London University, Historical Materialism Conference: panel on the Agrarian Question: paper presented :  ‘Towards A Lower Carbon Agriculture : An Experiment In Expert And Situated Knowledge In India’ (BHW)

December 2014 ICRIER, New Delhi India: International Conference on Jobs for Development , New Delhi. Keynote paper on ‘Jobs and Discrimination: informality in labour markets and Labour policy’ (BHWhttp://icrier-jobs.org/ (BHW)

December 2014 Invited Speaker at the American Geophysical Union Fall Conference, 2014. Social-environmental trade-offs for Systems of Rice Intensification in S. India” (AGH)

February 2015. Calcutta University, Kolkata, India: UK – India Agro-ecology initiative. Paper: Multidisciplinary analysis of rainfed compared to irrigated rice. (AGH)

March 2015. Chandigarh, India : Indian Society for Agro-Ecology.  Conference on “mainstreaming agro-ecology” 5th national organic farming convention. Paper: How good is SRI? (AGH)

April 2015 Manchester University, IDPM, International Workshop on Urban Informality. Paper The Indispensibility of Informality in an Indian Urban economy (BHW)

April 2015 UCL, Bartlett Energy Institute: London University International Workshop on ‘Energy-using people & energy-using things’ . Paper: Towards a lower carbon agriculture: an experiment in expert and situated knowledge (BHW)

June 2015 Sheffield University, International Law Conference: the Informal Economy: Global and Local.  Paper: A political economy of informality (BHW)

8. SEMINARS AND SPECIAL LECTURES on the project

November 2011Centre for Economic and Social Studies,  Hyderabad (BHW); Wolfson College Oxford (AGH and BHW)

March 2012IIT Madras – Department of Development Studies (BHW);  June 2012 IFPRI – Pusa Campus, New Delhi  (BHW)

November 2012 NIRD Hyderabad and  Council for Social Development – First Sankaran Memorial lecture : ‘PUDUMAI’ - INNOVATION AND INSTITUTIONAL CHURNING IN INDIA’S INFORMAL ECONOMY: a report from the field.  (BHW with Gilbert Rodrigo)

January 2013  Oxford University, Food Security Seminar, initial results  presented (James Martin School)  (AGH) (BHW);

February 2013 School of Oriental and African Studies, London University (BHW);

Bordeaux University, France, Groupe de Recherche Economique Theorique et Applique ( in French: audience of 60 (BHW));

March 2013 JNU  Centre for the Study of Regional Devt – audience of 250 – follow up about life cycle analysis training for JNU researchers (BHW).

June 2013 National Council of Applied Economic Research, New Delhi  (audience of 30: IAS policy makers, Oxfam, OUP, Planning Commission researchers, IARI, NSSO  experts as well as NCAER researchers)(BHW). 

July 2013, MSSwaminathan Research Foundation, Chennai  (140 people); Azim Premji University, Bangalore ( 80 people) ; National Institute of Advanced Studies, Bangalore, 4th (40 people)(BHW)  

October 2013 China Beijing Agricultural University   (About 150 people); Chinese Academy of Social Sciences  (about 30 people);  Hunan University of Commerce, Hunan  (25 experts);  University of Hunan,  (about 250 people) (BHW);

November 2013 USA  University of Pennsylvania  (innovation) (250 people)  (contact- Lisa Mitchell/Devesh Kapur) ; IFPRI  Washington, (contact - Shenggen Fan )  (20 people + wide internal circulation) and Cornell University (contact - Norman Uphoff)  (30 people _+ wide internal  and internet circulation)(BHWhttp://www.slideshare.net/SRI.CORNELL/1313-climate-change-materiality-and-rice-a-research-project-28500556 ; https://www.dropbox.com/s/ypnxg4tsb22zk3l/Barbara%20Cornell%20talk%20Nov%2018.MP3

Jan to June 2014 Somerville College, Oxford, Oxford-India Centre for Sustainable Development – weekly seminars on biophysical and socio-economic sustainability (AG-H)

February 2014 JNU New Delhi, visiting professorship to work on  labour and informality  - curriculum development  (contact -  Praveen Jha) (BHW);

March 2014 Bath University   EXPERT KNOWLEDGE AND SITUATED KNOWLEDGE – A MULTI-CRITERIA MAPPING OF TRADE-OFFS IN TECHNOLOGY OPTIONS IN RICE PRODUCTION IN INDIA’S SEMI ARID TROPICS (BHW).

March 2014 Centre for Social Development, New Delhi (Leading Think Tank): ‘Innovation in the informal economy’ (BHW) ; 

March 2014: Oxford-India Summit 2014 IIC New Delhi, India. Oxford University Society of India -  environment panel – on informality and policy (AGH and BHW); 

June 2014 Reading University  Doctoral Research conference keynote address : ‘Materialities of food’ (BHW).

October 2014  Sustainability Dialogue New Delhi. paper; “The Role of Markets in Addressing Climate Change and Sustainability” (AGH)

October 2014 Northwestern Agriculture and Forests University, Xi’An, China:  lectures on agriculture and on the materialities of rice (BHW);

November 2014 Special lecture to Urban Resilience Group What does sustainable retail mean in India today?” (AGH)

November 2014, Oxford Networks for the Environment, Kellogg College, paper ‘How to measure sustainability? Employment, environment and rice in Southern India   (AGH)

https://talks.ox.ac.uk/talk/index/19445

February, 2015 Birla Institute of Technology and Science , Pilani, Goa : lecture; On the low carbon transition and the metabolic rift (BHW)

April, 2015  Oxford Brookes Business School: The indispensability of informality in an Indian urban economy (BHW)

May 2015  EU / Latvian Ministry of Foreign Affairs / University of Latvia. Riga, International Scientific Network: India-EU: Opening Keynote The low carbon transition: International, cross-generational and multidisciplinary research (BHW)

9. OTHER DISCUSSIONS OF THE PROJECT

March 2012- end 2013MSSwaminathan Research Foundation, Chennai: Post-docs in climate change division  - head of division Prof Nambi; head of MSSRF Prof Parida ; Value Chain Analysts, Prof Bhavani Prof Vepa;  Prof M S Swaminathan Rajya Sabha MP and chair of MSSRF  (BHW)    Private sector Innovators – Akash Ganga: S Sivakumar ; M Myilsami      Media- Arvind Sivaramakrishnan – the Hindu;     UNDP – Seetha Prabhu ;    Planning Commission – Pronab Sen;  Media: Rajshekhar –  Economic Times; PS Jha  Times of India; IARI-IFPRI Pusa Campus (also ICRISAT, IRRI and CYMMYT reps in India) (BHW)     DFID’s Informal Research Advisory Group:  summary of  priorities for climate change research agenda ,  based on project experience (BHW)    Mulshi- Pune:  Watershed Organisation Trust;  Bhavana Arjuna Prof Bajpai; Anthra, livestock applications Dr N Ghotge; World Institute of Sustainable Energy, renewable energy applications Dr S Ghotge; Azim Premji University Bangalore  – Ecology and Environment, Development Studies and Law  -  livestock applications – PG university level applications  Prof Punendu;    Head of Ecology Rishi Valley School -  LCA as a concept for college youth. LCA of people rather than things.   Team-work projects, Radha Gopalan (AGH/BHW);    Director of the Rajiv Gandhi  Institure for Contemporary Studies, Rajiv Gandhi Foundation, Mohan Gopal (BHW) and with 3 MPs.    JNU  Centre for the Study of Regional Devt –  follow up interest in life cycle analysis training for JNU researchers – plan a short course later in 2013. (BHW)     Cambridge University - meeting on food security with Harsh Mander (BHW);    New Delhi, Institute of Human Development   Chair Prof Yoginder Alagh – suggests LCA-VCA method be applied to for hybrid rice and GM rice in eastern India and the interface between private corporations and the informal economy be researched;     International Water Management Institute IWMI   Dr Bharat Sharma – solar applications to agriculture (AGH/BHW); JNU Centre for the Study of Informal Labour (Prof Praveen Jha).

2014-15 Mark Runacres, CBI, India;   Nasser Mukhtar Muniee, KPMG;    Karan Chanana, CEO, Amira;   Tom Norton-Lewis, Oxford Policy Mgt, New Delhi;    David Landsman, Chair Tata-Europe;   Judith Unwin, Export Finance, BNPParibas Bank; Shalinia Nagar, Head of Sustainability-India, Marks and Spencers;    Sir David John, Chair Royal Society of Arts for Asia ;    Henry Neufeld, World Agro-forestry Centre (ICRAF);   Prof Nandan Nawn (WB National University of Juridical Sciences);      Dinesh Abrol (JNU);      Dr Bruno Dorin Centre des Sciences Humaines, New Delhi;      Michael Ekers Assistant Professor Department of Human Geography , University of Toronto, Canada;       Prof Haroon Akram-Lodhi, Trent University, Canada;      Dr Arunabha Ghosh, Council on Energy Environment and Water, New Delhi;      Prof Nilaba Ghosh,    Institute for Economic Growth, Delhi University, India;   M Jahi Chappell, Director,  Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy;   David Strelneck, Nutrient Value Chain Framework, Ashoka Social Entrepreneurs;   Lucy Emerton, Environmental Economics consultant;  Ranjan Mattal, Indian High Commissioner to the UK;  Sam Saintha, CEO Lyca Money;    Nicholas Booker, CEO, IndoGenius;   Naini Lal Kidwai, Chair, HSBC India;  Arindan Bhattacharya, MD of Boston Consulting Group India;   Dr Harry W. Fischer, Research Fellow, Revitalizing Rainfed Agriculture Network, Hyderabad, India; Rebecca Heaton, Specialist, Strategic Issues, Shell;  Ratan Tata, Chairman Emeritus, Tata Sons Ltd. 

10. PUBLICATIONS

see:

http://www.southasia.ox.ac.uk/working-papers-resources-greenhouse-gases-technology-and-jobs-indias-informal-economy-case-rice

for details of 18 working papers.

Dr Gathorne-Hardy is senior author of a Palgrave ‘Pivot Series’ short book introducing the integrated LCA-VCA-MCM method in the context of Indian rice, expected in 2016.

Published Outputs

10.1 (2013) ‘SRI Cultivation in Andhra Pradesh : Achievements, Problems and Implications for GHGs and Work’.  Munich Personal RePEc Archive : MPRA_paper_52115.pdf  http://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/52115/ Duvvuru, Narasimha Reddy and Motkuri, Venkatanarayana 

10.2 (2013) ‘Climate change, materiality and rice’

http://www.slideshare.net/SRI.CORNELL/1313-climate-change-materiality-and-rice-a-research-project-28500556    (Barbara Harriss-White, Alfred Gathorne-Hardy, D Narasimha Reddy, D Mishra and R Hema)

10.3 (2014)  ‘A Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) of Greenhouse Gas Emissions from SRI and Flooded Rice Production in SE India’ Special issue on SRI’ ed Norman Uphoff Taiwan Journal of Water Conservancy vol 61 no 4, pp 110-125 http://140.112.63.162/pdf/61/61-4-110-125.pdf [Alfred Gathorne-Hardy, with D. Narasimha Reddy, Motkuri VenkatanarayanaVenkatanarayana Motkuri and Barbara Harriss-White]

10.4 (2014) ‘The Micro-political economy of gains by unorganised labour in India’s informal economy’ version Economic and Political Weekly vol XLIX no 9 pp 39-43 March 1st (Barbara Harriss-White with Valentina Prosperi)

10.5 (2014) ‘The Roles of India’s Informal Economy’ Yojana (Govt of India Ministry of Planning, vol 58, pp 21-30 (Barbara Harriss-White)

[English circulation 80,000.  Circulation in all major Indian languages over 200,000).

10.6 (2014) ‘Labour and petty production’  Development and Change Special Issue: FORUM 2014 September Volume 45, Issue 5 pp 981-1000 (Barbara Harriss-White)

10.7 (2014) ‘Innovation in India’s Informal Economy’  Social Development Forum 1/2014, Council for Social Development, New Delhi  (Booklet)  (Barbara Harriss-White)

(also submitted to the IBG conference on ‘Geographies of Co-production’ , Royal Geographical Society, 2014 and (ed) (CLIMURB) Urban Poverty and Climate Change (Routledge Earthscan)

10.8 (2015)  The Foodgrains Economy in Northern Tamil Nadu, 1973-2010: local capitalist transformations’ ch 3 in (ed) B Harriss-White Middle India and its Urban-Rural dynamism: four decades of change in Tamil Nadu, New Delhi, Springer  (Barbara Harriss-White)

– accepted to date

 10.9  ‘Science-Policy Interfaces in an Era of Global Commodification’  chapter for ‘(eds) C.Raj Kumar, Shiv Visvanathan, R. Sudarshan and Y.S.R.Murthy The Future of Indian Universities: Comparative and International Perspectives, New Delhi, OUP  (BHW)

10.10   ‘Innovation in the Informal Economy of Mofussil India’  in (eds) L Mitchell et al India as a Pioneer of Innovation: Constraints & Opportunities, New Delhi, OUP  (BHW)

-submitted : 

10.11‘Rethinking Institutions: innovation and institutional change in India’s Informal Economy’,  Modern Asian Studies (BHW

10.12 ‘Pulling in the right direction - the carbon, economic and labour implications of tractors vs bullocks, and manure vs urea’,  Ambio AGH

10.13 ‘System of Rice Intensification reduces environmental impacts but at the expense of social sustainability - a multidisciplinary analysis in India’ Agricultural Systems

Alfred Gathorne-Hardy, D. Narasimha Reddy, Motkuri Venkatanarayana, Venkatanarayana Motkuri and Barbara Harriss-White

10.14 ‘The environmental, economic and social impacts of organic rice compared to conventional rice in South India’ Ecological Economics Alfred Gathorne-Hardy and Barbara Harriss-White

-invited:

10.15 ‘Pudumai – innovation and institutional churning in India’s Informal Economy- a report from the field’ invited for the Sankaran Chair Working Paper Series, National Institute of Rural Development, Hyderabad,   [BHW with Gilbert Rodrigo]

IMPACT DIARY July 2015- March 2016:

RESOURCES, GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSIONS, TECHNOLOGY AND WORK IN PRODUCTION AND DISTRIBUTION SYSTEMS: RICE IN INDIA    

See the earlier Impact Diary for impact activity for October 2011-June 2015.

INTRODUCTION

This is a pilot project (RES-167-25-MTRUYG0; ES/1033768/1)

funded by ESRC-DFID under their Poverty Alleviation stream

http://www.esrc.ac.uk/funding-and-guidance/funding-opportunities/international-funding/esrc-dfid/.

It has been devoted to developing new methods measuring, fusing and analysing trade-offs between environmental, social and economic parameters for parts of an economy that are ‘informal’: out of direct policy control and usually very poorly measured.

The substantive case study is of a series of production-distribution systems in the Indian rice economy.

Cross cutting themes include the politics of labour gains and of innovation in the informal economy and the informalisation of policy.

Practical policy implications were tested in a consultative  multi-criteria application.

Definition of impact in our proposal

– short term – on learning (through feedback/dissemination workshops; website; correspondence and networking; conference presentations; publications)

– longer term – on new applications and collaborations (through interactive collaboration; networking and workshops; successful new proposals and research initiatives).

Our jointly agreed philosophy of impact

 –  to expose the project to outside feedback and engagement  with three user groups from start (policy (P);  food governance/ rice/ innovation (R); advocacy, activist, research and education (AE); while ensuring that results are not presented prematurely).

 –  to talk to politicians and not only to policy-makers.

 –  to expose wide audiences to the method including research minded journalists.

 –  to have a direct public impact through the Multi Criteria Mapping experiment.

 –  to nurture and develop individual capacities for possible future applications.

Measurement of impact

– short term and long term: public engagement/learning opportunities and

– long term : further applications and further developments

There are ten aspects to our achieved impact activity:

  1. Activity throughout the life of the project (four kinds of activity);
  2. Major international conference;
  3. Teaching ourselves with others (four kinds);
  4. Impact through HE teaching and learning;
  5. Impact with civil society;
  6. Longer term follow-up;
  7. Conference presentations;
  8. Seminars and special lectures;
  9. Discussions;
  10. Publications.

1. ACTIVITY THROUGHOUT THE LIFE OF THE PROJECT – AND AFTERWARDS

1.1.EXPERT NETWORK - 

Network completed in mid 2015 by the Institute of Human Development in New Delhi.

Dissemination took the form of nested abstracts: 100 words -> 500 words -> link to entire paper/report in site of publication.

Presence on Facebook: Techjobs Low Carbon Future https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100009708165772

1.2.ENGAGEMENT WITH JOURNALISTS  AND MEDIA

2015-16: M Raj Shekhar of Scroll.in (on informality);  

Krishna Chaitanya of Indian Express (on informality);

Darryl D’Monte (on pollution).

1.3. ENGAGEMENT WITH POLITICIANS

2015-16: none

1.4.WEBSITE

updated continually as appropriate

2. Conference June 2013

completed

3.TEACHING OURSELVES WITH OTHERS

3.1.LEARNING WORKSHOPS

 – 14-16 March 2016, Lahore University of Management Sciences, Lahore, Pakistan: a two-day multidisciplinary learning workshop on Informality  -  at least 15 participants (teaching and research faculty, graduate and undergraduate students).

 – (planned and forthcoming) May 2016. Bringing ecology into sustainable nutrition – how to link develop a conceptual model to link the local environment and healthy food. Funding won from British Ecological Society. At least 15 participants.

 – (planned and forthcoming) June 2016. Making policy from complex data. Funding from OICSD for learning workshop bringing together policy makers and academics. At least 15 participants.

 

3.2. LEARNING BY DOING

no further activity

3.3. HELPING OTHERS TO LEARN THROUGH FEEDBACK-DISSEMINATION WORKSHOPS

no further activity

3.4. HELPING OTHERS TO LEARN THROUGH SHORT COURSE/TRAINING WORKSHOPS

no further activity

4. IMPACT THROUGH H.E. TEACHING

2015-16: Prof Aseem Prakash, Dean of Public Policy, has mainstreamed policy informality from his field research in this project into his masters’ curriculum in the Tata Institute of Social Science, Hyderabad campus.

2015-16: Dr Alfred Gathorne-Hardy, Research Director of the Oxford-India Centre for Sustainable Development, provides  an 8 week option course titled Sustainable Nutrition for the Masters in Public Policy at Oxford University’s Blavatnik School of Government, based in part on this project.

Late 2015 semester: Prof Barbara Harriss-White offered a 5 x 2 hour module on informality in the economy for Jawaharlal Nehru University’s new MSc in Labour Studies – 30 graduate students.

5. IMPACT WITH CIVIL SOCIETY

WIEGO (anchored in Harvard but operating worldwide) (the role of the informal economy in a green transition)

6. LONGER TERM FOLLOW-UP

Prof Aseem Prakash has won field research funding from the Indian Council of Social Science Research for a project on religion in informal business and its implications for (informalised) policy.

Likewise colleagues from the Centre for the Informal Sector and Labour Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi have won ICSSR field research grants for research on social identity and informal business in UP (Profs A. Kumar and S. Pai).

Soumanas Koulagi intends to apply the methods pioneered in the project reporting here to textiles technology in doctoral research at Edinburgh University.

Prof Barbara Harriss-White has been approached by the editor of Current Sociology Monographs (OUP) to write/compile a book on India’s informal capitalism.

The focus on gaseous waste in this project has led to focus on informality in the handling of liquid and solid waste in India - with LSE EU-ESRC funds. http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/inequalityandpoverty/ Though resulting directly from the research project reported here, the work on liquid and solid waste is now funded as a separate project.

The work on innovation in the informal economy (BH-W) is being developed in an application in China organised at the North Western Agriculture and Forests University, Xi’An, by Prof Z. Guo.

 

7. CONFERENCE PRESENTATIONS

Gathorne-Hardy 2015, British Ecological Society conference 2015. Socio-environmental trade-offs of Indian rice - a multidisciplinary analysis. Conference presentation.

Harriss-White: 28-29th January 2016 M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation, conference honouring Prof Venkatesh Athreya PROVISIONING CHENNAI : LABOUR IN THE RICE SUPPLY  SYSTEM

 

8. SEMINARS AND SPECIAL LECTURES on the project

Gathorne-Hardy A. : Thursday 28th January 2016. SCR/MCR Symposium, Somerville College. Should I eat rice? (Oxford India Centre for Sustainable Development)

Thursday 28 January 2016,  12:00pm – 14:00pm.The Centre for Agroecology, Water and Resilience (CAWR), Coventry. : Is rice sustainable?

Thursday 25 February 2016,  12:00pm – 14:00pm. Imperial College, London. : Agriculture and Development

9. OTHER DISCUSSIONS OF THE PROJECT

Conseil National de Developpement et de Solidarite International, Paris, France, college international ;  WIEGO  (Marty Chen, Jim Bird), USA-worldwide; IIED, (Emily Benson) London - global; Climate Outreach, (Tany Alexander), UK;   Green Growth Knowledge Platform, (Ben Simmons) Geneva - worldwide

10. PUBLICATIONS

published

Harriss-White B. 2015, ‘"Local Capitalism" and the Development of the Rice Economy, 1973–2010’. pp 98-130 in (ed) B Harriss-White Middle India and Urban-Rural Development’ New Delhi, Springer

Gathorne-Hardy A., D. Narasimha Reddy, Motkuri Venkatanarayana and B Harriss-White Venkatanarayana Motkuri, 2016, ‘System of Rice Intensification reduces environmental impacts but at the expense of social sustainability - a multidisciplinary analysis in India’ Agricultural Systems  vol 143,pp 159-168 ; DOI: 10.1016/j.agsy.2015.12.012.

in production

Harriss-White, B. A Gathorne-Hardy and G Rodrigo, ‘Towards a lower carbon agriculture: an experiment in expert and situated knowledge.’

Harriss-White B. with Gautam Mody, M. Mani and M. Sukumar, ‘Provisioning Chennai: Labour in the Rice Supply System’,  in (ed) A. Narayamoorthy Rural India after the Reforms (pub tbc)

being revised after submission

Gathorne-Hardy A. , D Narasimha Reddy, M Venkatanarayana and B Harriss-White,   ‘The environmental, economic and social impacts of organic rice compared to conventional rice in South India’ Ecological Economics

accepted with corrections

Gathorne-Hardy, A and Harriss-White, B. Pulling in the right direction - the carbon, economic and labour implications of tractors vs bullocks, and manure vs urea. Ambio

Harriss-White B. ‘Rethinking Institutions: innovation and institutional change in India’s Informal Economy’,  Modern Asian Studies(BHW

accepted

B Harriss-White:forthcoming,   ‘Science-Policy Interfaces in an Era of Global Commodification’  chapter for ‘(eds) C.Raj Kumar, Shiv Visvanathan, R. Sudarshan and Y.S.R.Murthy The Future of Indian Universities: Comparative and International Perspectives, New Delhi, OUP  (BHW)

forthcoming   ‘Innovation in the Informal Economy of Mofussil India’  in (eds) L Mitchell et al India as a Pioneer of Innovation: Constraints & Opportunities, New Delhi, OUP  (BHW)

forthcoming ‘Innovation in India’s Informal Economy’ in (ed) Rohit Madan Entrepreneurship in the Peri-urban Global South. (pub tbc)

forthcoming Innovation in the Context of Climate Change: Learning from India’s Informal Economy, ch 11, in (ed) Manoj Roy, S Cawood and M Hordrijk Urban Poverty and Climate Change: Life in the slums of Asia, Africa and Latin America (pub tbc)

forthcoming,  ‘Filieres Vivrieres, commercial capital and the question of ‘petty production’ in South India’, in ed Lerche et al, Volume honouring Henry Bernstein

THIRD IMPACT DIARY : MARCH 2016 TO MARCH 2017

http://www.southasia.ox.ac.uk/resources-greenhouse-gases-technology-and-...

Grant reference RES-167-25-MTRUYG0; ES/1033768/1

-           

PI Name BARBARA HARRISS-WHITE

Progress of your research project: MARCH 2016 TO MARCH 2017

FOR THE PROJECT’S IMPACT FROM 2011-16, SEE TWO IMPACT DIARIES:

1.

http://www.southasia.ox.ac.uk/impact-diary-2011-2015-resources-greenhouse-gas-emissions-technology-and-work-production-and

AND

2.

http://www.southasia.ox.ac.uk/impact-update-july-2015-march-2016

 

Project progress: March 2016 to March 2017.

Since March, Prof Deepak Mishra, JNU, is finishing work on rainfed rice in Odisha developed from his role in the project.

Prof Aseem Prakash, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Hyderabad, has developed an ambitious master’s curriculum in Public Policy based on this project’s field research in the informalisation of policy.

Dr Alfred Gathorne-Hardy is research director of the Oxford-India Centre for Sustainable Development. Somerville College, Oxford, and feeds the project results directly into his professional work.  He is preparing a short book on research methods and guidelines for Life Cycle Assessment in the Informal Economy. The Palgrave Pivot series has expressed interest.

Prof Barbara Harriss-White has also made progress

1. finishing the project’s paper on the field-based application of multi-criteria mapping of mitigation technology for agriculture,

2. co-writing a paper with the field research staff from the New Trade Union Initiative on labour in the supply chain of rice for Chennai; (with Mohan Mani, Gautam Mody and Meghna Sukumar) forthcoming  ‘Provisioning Chennai: Labour in the Rice Supply Chain’. in  (ed) A Narayanamoorthy Agriculture and Rural India after the Economic Reforms  (Sage/Routledge tbc)

and

3. revising project-based papers on innovation in the informal economy for one high-impact journal 3.1. 2017 Rethinking Institutions: Innovation and Institutional Change in India's Informal Economy, Modern Asian Studies and two book chapters. 3.2.with Gilbert Rodrigo , 2016, ‘Innovation in the Context of Climate Change: What is happening in India’s Informal Economy, ch 11, pp 187-201 in (ed) Manoj Roy, S Cawood, M Hordrijk and D Hulme, Urban Poverty and Climate Change: Life in the slums of Asia, Africa and Latin America, Abingdon, Routledge; 3.3. 2017 ‘Innovation in the Informal Economy of Mofussil India’ in (eds) L Mitchell et al India as a Pioneer of Innovation: Constraints & Opportunities (New Delhi, OUP) / (Univ of Pennsylvania)

 

Project Impact: March 2016 to March 2017

Conference cum meeting: complex recipe

12th-13th July 2016, Oxford-India Centre:

In a direct development from this project, two project participants (BHW and AGH) collaborated to organise an international conference at Oxford University, funded by Tata Trusts India, staged in the new Blavatnik School of Government and bringing together multi-disciplinary ideas about nutrition, the environment and social and political power.

Over 100 participants included academics from Europe, North America, South Asia and Africa as well as staff of multinational corporations involved in the food sector, UN agencies, third sector individuals from NGOs and thank tanks in the UK and India, international policy makers and high profile politicians, and media people (documentary film makers and public-artists).

More details and on-going follow-up can be found herehttp://www.some.ox.ac.uk/research/oxford-india-centre/oicsd-conference-r....

February 2017

International workshop on Relational Agency Pathways Into and Out of Poverty, during Green Revolutions

Madras Institute of Development Studies, Chennai, India,

This project of SPRU, Sussex University and MIDS, Chennai will revisit villages studied in the project being reported here, under which the 5th round of village surveys since 1972 was carried out. BHW presented an overview of the relation between agricultural technology and development and rural poverty over five rounds of village surveys:’ THE GREEN REVOLUTION AND POVERTY IN NORTHERN TAMIL NADU – A BRIEF OVERVIEW OF RESEARCH IN THE LAST HALF CENTURY’

 

Publications since March 2016

Alfred Gathorne-Hardy, D. Narasimha Reddy, Motkuri Venkatanarayana

and Barbara Harriss-White,  2016,Venkatanarayana Motkuri ‘System of Rice Intensification reduces environmental impacts but at the expense of social sustainability - a multidisciplinary analysis in India’ Agricultural Systems.  Vol. 143, pp. 159-168.

 

Barbara Harriss-White, 2016, ‘From Analysing ”Filieres Vivrieres” to understanding Capital and Petty Production in rural South India’, Journal of Agrarian Change 16(3) pp. 478-500.

Barbara Harriss-White with Gilbert Rodrigo, 2016, ‘Innovation in the Context of Climate Change: What is happening in India’s Informal Economy?’, ch. 11, pp. 187-201 in (ed.) Manoj Roy, S Cawood, M Hordrijk and D Hulme, Urban Poverty and Climate Change: Life in the slums of Asia, Africa and Latin America, Abingdon, Routledge.

Alfred Gathorne-Hardy 2016 The sustainability of changes in agricultural technology: The carbon, economic and labour implications of mechanisation and synthetic fertiliser use Ambio.;45 (8):885-894. Epub 2016 Jun 6. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27272348.

Alfred Gathorne-Hardy and Barbara Harriss-White 2017 ‘The environmental, economic and social impacts of organic rice compared to conventional rice in South India’ Ecological Economics

 

Teaching: summer 2016

Lessons from the ESRC-DFID funded project have been built into a new MSc options course at the Blavatnik School of Government, Oxford University, on ‘Sustainable Nutrition’, taught by both AGH and BHW, with additional inputs from modellers, policy makers and NGOs.

Policy engagement

Prof Harriss-White has been nominated by the Sorbonne’s IEDES and approved by the French Government to serve in the ‘international college’ of  the French Government’s Conseil National de Developpement et Solidarite International which meets thrice a year to discuss French aid (top priority in which, post COP 21, is aid and finance for a low carbon transition).

So the project results are regularly fed into debates in the Quai d’Orsay (as they also have been when appropriate during BHW’s 6 year period of service on DFID’s Research Advisory Group for the Chief Scientific Adviser).

 

Capacity Building, March 2016 to March 2017:

March 2016 Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS), Lahore, Pakistan :

Capacity-building Workshop on ‘Informality across the Frontiers’.  BHW was senior organiser, bringing mainly Indian literature to Pakistan to be presented and discussed by local faculty. 12 participants from economics, anthropology, history and politics from three top universities in Lahore participated in a fertile two-day brainstorming.

 

Non-academic Stakeholders, March 2016 to March 2017:

See collaboration with New Trade Union Initiative (under Progress above) and see the report on the Complex Recipeconference, (under Impact above).

Team Members

Prof D.N. Reddy, Senior Research Fellow, Institute of Human Development, New Delhi (Partner Institution) and Sankaran Professor of Labour Studies, National Institute of Rural Development, Hyderabad - economist - senior adviser on dissemination, responsible for Andhra fieldwork and project representative at the Institute of Human Development, New Delhi

Prof Barbara Harriss-White CSASP, SIAS barbara.harriss-white@qeh.ox.ac.uk political economist - overall direction - advice on studies of distribution - multi-criteria analysis / mapping - innovation and technological changes and labour in the informal economy

Dr Alfy Gathorne-Hardy, CSASP. SIAS - life cycle analyst – responsible for the life cycle analysis of the four production-distribution system, the integrated model of LCA-VCA, and the analysis of labour and GHGs

Dr Hema Ramachandran Madras School of Economics - economist - responsible for value chain analysis in market and social prices and the field research in Tamil Nadu

Dr Deepak Mishra, Jawarhalal Nehru University field economist – responsible for field research on rainfed rice in Odisha (Orissa)

Dr Aseem Prakash Jindal Global University responsible for research on policy and the informal economy and for the communications strategy

Gautam Mody, New Trade Union Initiative - with Mohan Mani and Meghna Sukumar (Centre for Workers’ Management) responsible for field research and analysis of labour in the production-distribution system

Donor and Institutions

Donor:

ESRC-DFID under the poverty alleviation call.

The ESRC-DFID Scheme micro-site www.esrc.ac.uk/dfid-poverty .

The ESRC-DFID Scheme newsletter www.esrc.ac.uk/dfid-newsletter

The ESRC-DFID Scheme on Twitter - @ESRCDFIDpoverty.

Lead Institution:

Contemporary South Asian Studies Programme, Oxford University, UK

Partner Institutions:

Institute of Human Development, New Delhi

http://www.ihdindia.org/

National Institute of Rural Development, Hyderabad

http://www.nird.org.in/

Madras School of Economics, Chennai

http://www.mse.ac.in/

Centre for the Study of Regional Developoment, JNU, New Delhi

http://www.jnu.ac.in/Academics/Schools/SchoolOfSocialSciences/RegionalCe...

School of Public Policy and Governance, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Hyderaba Campus

http://www.tiss.edu/ 

New Trade Union Initiative, New Delhi

http://ntui.org.in/what-we-do/

Centre for Workers’ Management, Bangalore and Chennai

http://www.hivos.nl/dut/community/partner/10002373

Project Subcomponents

The project seeks to integrate a number of fields of knowledge currently developing independently: They are as follows (with the main person/people responsible in brackets):

Life cycle analysis (Gathorne-Hardy)

Value/supply chain analysis (Hema)

Rice production (SRI- Reddy ; Rainfed Rice – Mishra ; High Yielding Varieties and Organic rice – Hema and Gathorne-Hardy)

Rice distribution (Hema; Mani and Sukumar with guidance from Harriss-White)

Policy Studies (Prakash)

Multi-criteria Mapping - for technology / policy alternatives (Harriss-White)

Labour Studies (Mody, Mani and Sukumar)

Innovation and Technology Studies (Gathorne-Hardy and Harriss-White)

Low Carbon transitions and climate change (ditto)

Informal Economy (Harriss-White)

Research Applications
  1. Other commodity chains or sectors involving production-distribution systems weaving in and out of the informal economy.
  2. Big polluters - (these are energy, iron and steel, fertiliser, aluminium, cement/construction and paper/pulp) - subcontracting to informal enterprises and casualization of teh workforce are common and vitiate official statistics.
  3. Adding new elements to the methodological tools - such as resilience and biodiversity.
  4. New, neglected research topics - the intensification of livestock and fish production for instance, their implications for GHGs and employment.
  5. Highly labour intensive sectors vital for labour intensive growth e.g. textiles.
  6. Infrastructure e.g. sewerage; waste collection; water; housing technology; public buildings.

Do contact us for advice and potential collaboration.

Working Papers

Working Papers

Research outputs are of five kinds:

1.     The development of the methods

i) to measure and interpret green house gas emissions from rice production and distribution - life cycle assessment  (LCA),

ii) to integrate this with Value or Supply Chain Analysis (VCA) and

iii) to subject  the technology (or policy) implications of these measurements to a public consultation in terms of criteria which are incommensurable (environmental , social and economic) – MultiCriteria Mapping (MCM) 

- are found in papers 1, 3 to 8, 10 and 18.

2.     Background papers on rice in the three states taken for case study, Odisha, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu, comprise numbers  12, 13 and 17.

3.     Papers on informal labour comprise numbers 2, 11 and 16.

4.     Research on innovation in the informal economy is presented in paper 9.

5.     The science-policy interface and the informalisation of state policy comprise working papers 14 and 15.

  1. Rebecca White, Alfred Gathorne-Hardy, Barbara Harriss-White and R. Hema  'Resources, Greenhouse Gas Emissions, Technology and Work in Production and Distribution Systems: Materiality in Rice in India' February 2012 
  2. Barbara Harriss-White with Valentina Prosperi 'The Micro-Political-Economy of Gains By Unorganised Workers in India’s Informal  Economy' January 2013
  3. Alfred Gathorne-Hardy ‘On Life Cycle Analysis: Baselines and Boundaries’
  4. Alfred Gathorne-Hardy ‘Multidisciplinary life cycle assessment - a methodological outline’
  5. Alfred Gathorne-Hardy ‘On GHG emissions from rice’
  6. Alfred Gathorne-Hardy ‘On bullocks versus tractors, manures versus urea –GHG insights
  7. Alfred Gathorne-Hardy and R Hema ‘An introduction to Life Cycle Assessment, Value Chain Analysis and linking the two’
  8. Barbara Harriss-White ‘Evaluating alternative technologies and policies – evaluating multi-criteria mapping’.
  9. Barbara Harriss-White with Gilbert Rodrigo ‘Innovation in India’s informal economy’
  10. R Hema ‘On the Value Chain approach to the Informal Economy (of Rice)’
  11. Mohan Mani, Gautam Mody and Meghna Sukumar ‘Employment and Working Conditions in the Retail Sector – Chennai’
  12. Deepak Mishra ‘On Rainfed Rice in Odisha’
  13. D N Reddy and Venkatanarayana ‘On Systems of Rice Intensification in Andhra Pradesh’
  14. Aseem Prakash 'On researching policy and the informal economy'
  15. Barbara Harriss-White 'Science-Policy Interfaces in an Era of Global Commodification'
  16. Mohan Mani, Gautam Mody and Meghna Sukumar 'Supply Chains for Rice in Chennai'
  17. Barbara Harriss-White ‘The Foodgrains Economy in Northern Tamil Nadu, 1973-2010: local capitalist transformations’
  18. Alfred Gathorne-Hardy, D. Narasimha Reddy, Motkuri Venkatanarayana and Barbara Harriss-White ‘A Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) of Greenhouse Gas Emissions from SRI and Flooded Rice Production in SE India’

These have all been publicly presented and discussed, revised and peer reviewed.

Learning Workshops

Learning Workshop: the Materiality of Rice, World Institute of Sustainable Energy, Pune, and Contemporary South Asian Studies Programme, SIAS, Oxford.

Learning Workshop Pune 2011

Initial Learning Workshop: the Materiality of Rice, World Institute of Sustainable Energy, Pune, and Contemporary South Asian Studies Programme, SIAS, Oxford.

February 14th - 17th, 2011, with seed funds from the Oxford University Fell Fund.

The idea behind an experimental 'learning workshop' is that learning is at its most creative when scholars from different backgrounds can teach one another and learn at the same time as they discuss.

The formula requires inviting a small group of 10-15 people with different backgrounds who are motivated to acquire knowledge in new fields. The format is that of a research workshop, each session having one or two papers presented and formally critiqued before general discussion.

The difference is that few participants present their own work. The vast majority present published papers written by others that have been selected as representing the cutting edge in the fields of knowledge being explored.

There is no objective other than mutual teaching and learning; and no single outcome to the workshop. The Pune workshop was the second run by the CSASP. The first - in December 2010 in Oxford explored (micro)finance and ecological services. We have reason to believe they have both been successful.

The Pune workshop included engineers and technologists, a vet specialising in agro-pastoral systems, a trade union organiser, NGO development practitioners, and scholars from politics, environmental economics, development economics, development studies, political economy and environmental science.

The fields of knowledge explored were as follows: paradigms of policy analysis, science and technology studies, the informal economy, value chains, labour and employment and life cycle analysis (from materials science).

The substantive objective of the workshop was to examine how these fields of knowledge could be synthesised to better understand the material inputs and outputs of a range of systems of cultivation and distribution of rice. Tools developed for the case of rice would have potential for widespread applications in other sectors of the economy.

The Pune-based NGO 'Anthra' and WISE compiled the learning materials into a bound volume of 800 pages which can be used as a future resource in other contexts.

 

Learning Workshop, Mulshi, November 2012 - Resources, greenhouse gases, technology and jobs in India's informal economy the case of rice

Paddy Gunny Bags

In November 2012, the project discussed methods and presented early results at a workshop-retreat called ’Research methods for the anthropocene’ organised at the Crompton Greaves Management Development Centre, Mulshi, Pune, by

ANTHRA http://www.anthra.org/  

with participants from

WOTR, http://www.wotr.org/

WISE, http://www.wisein.org/  and

Azim Premji University, http://azimpremjiuniversity.edu.in/

Write to us for further details. barbara.harriss-white@qeh.ox.ac.uk

 

Two Work in Progress Workshops - Resources, Greenhouse Gas Emissions, Technology and Work In Production & Distribution Systema: Rice in India

Borewell Drilling

HYDERABAD AND CHENNAI – TRAINING/LEARNING/DISSEMINATIONWORKSHOPS

A TOTAL OF 80 PARTICIPANTS LEARNED ABOUT THE NEW METHODS AND EARLY RESULTS.

RESOURCES, GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSIONS, TECHNOLOGY AND WORK IN PRODUCTION AND DISTRIBUTION SYSTEMS: RICE IN INDIA

Two Work in Progress Workshops*

November, 2012

NIRD and Oxford University at NIRD, Hyderabad - - and  MSE and Oxford University at MSE, Chennai

All over the world societies are starting to wrestle with the problems of adaptation to anthropogenic climate change and the need to make reductions in emissions of greenhouse gases. Our research project conceives an economy as a system of capital (including technology) and labour, generating commodities and waste. However, when production and distribution takes place in and out of the informal economy it is out of direct control of the state and policy. The implications of informality are little discussed in debates on development, let alone on climate change. Our research is developing methods to study the production of material burdens in the informal economy. When we have identified stages of maximum profligacy and poorest quality work we will attempt to discover the social weightings of a range of criteria for selected technological alternatives.

We focus on water and carbon dioxide as indicators of materiality. Rice has been selected for case study not as a big polluter so much as for its complexity. Four technologies of production are being researched along with five channels of marketing/distribution. The fieldwork is taking place in several Indian states.

Towards the end of the field work stage of our research, we wish to bring together people interested in the questions raised by integrating the concerns of seven academic fields:       1.Climate change        2. Science and technology        3.Informal economy    4.Labour studies     5. Policy studies       6. Life cycle analysis      7.Supply/value chain analysis     with (8) the paddy-rice system as our case study.

Along with scientists/social scientists (we are happy to involve young researchers), we also wish to invite stakeholders (policy makers / sector associations/ trade unions/ inventors-innovators/ financiers) and disseminators (journalists and media professionals).

The purpose of the work in progress workshops at different centres is to present our methods, to present and discuss preliminary results, to stimulate learning among people potentially interested in new applications of the methods.

We will also have to re-examine and discuss how technology diffuses in the informal economy beyond state regulation, how policies affect economic activity outside the bounds of their enforcement capacities, how informal workers are able to improve the terms and conditions of their work and whether technological changes have been or could be involved.

Team members operate as a network: Prof D N Reddy (NIRD Hyderabad and IHD, New Delhi); Prof Hema (MSE); Prof Deepak Mishra (JNU); Gautam Mody, Mohan  Mani and their team (Centre for Workers’ Management, B’lore and New Delhi); Dr Aseem Prakash (Jindal GU, Sonipat, Ha); Dr Alfred Gathorne-Hardy and Prof Barbara Harriss-White (Oxford)

Work-in-Progress Workshop Programme

On the Project “Measuring Materiality in Information Production-Distribution Systems – With Particular Reference to Rice in India”[1]

November 16, 2012

Conference Hall IV

National Institute of Rural Development, Hyderabad

PROGRAMME

9.30 – 10.00                Registration     

10.00 – 10.15              Welcome – Introduction

10.15 – 10.30              About the Workshop: Prof Barbara Harriss-White

10.30 – 13.00              Session I: METHODS

1. Prof Hema – “On the Value Chain approach to the Informal Economy (of Rice)”

2. Dr Gathorne-Hardy – “On Life Cycle Analysis: baselines and boundaries”

Tea Break

11.30 11.45

3. Dr Gathorne Hardy and Prof Hema – “On fusing the two approaches: LCA and VCA”

4. Prof Barbara Harriss-White – “On scoping technological alternatives: Multi-criteria Mapping (MCM)”

5. Dr Aseem Prakash – “On researching Policy and the Informal Economy”

LUNCH

13.00 – 14.00

14.00 – 17.00              Session II: Context and Initial Results

1. Prof D N Reddy and M Venkatanarayana – “On SRI in Andhra Pradesh”

2. Dr. Deepak Mishra – “On Rainfed Rice in Odisha”

3. Dr. Alfred Gathorne Hardy – “On GHG emissions from Rice”

4. Dr. Alfred Gathorne Hardy – “On Bullocks versus Tractors; Manures versus Urea

– GHG insights”

Tea Break

15.30 – 17.00

5. Dr. Gautam Mody, Mr. Mohan Mani and Ms Meghna. Sukumar – “On Labour in the Food Supply System”

6. Prof Barbara Harriss-White and Dr ValentinaProsperi – “On what’s known about how unorganised labour makes gains”

7. Prof Barbara Harriss-White and Mr Gilbert Rodrigo – “On innovation in the informal economy”

 


[1] Organised jointly by the School of Interdisciplinary Area Studies, University of Oxford and S R Sankaran Chair, NIRD, Hyderabad.

 


* Organised jointly by the School of Interdisciplinary Area Studies, University of Oxford and Madras School of Economics~

 

Oxford IHD Conference New Delhi June 13th 14th

The final symposium of the ESRC-DFID funded project on Technology, Jobs and a Lower Carbon Future - Methods, Substance and ideas for the Informal Economy (the case of rice)  took place on 13th-14th June 2013 at the India International Centre, New Delhi, organised by the Institute for Human Development.

It covered two years of (field) research across eleven knowledge fields and involved a network of researchers in 6 Indian institutions.

The conference was inaugurated by the Minister for Science, Technology and Earth Science, Mr Jaipal Reddy and Prof Yoginder Alagh, the former Minister and economist.
On the science front, Rajendra Pachauri the Nobel peace prize winning chair of the IPCC chaired the final session. Representing the bureaucracy: Dr T Chatterjee IAS, former environment secretary.

Planning and Policy: Prof Abijit Sen of the Planning Commission and Prof S Hashim, former Member.Journalism: Praful Bidwai.
Informal Economy: Prof Jeeemol Unni, Director, IRMA Ahmedabad
Labour and Civil Society: Nagraj Adve, Climate Justice Network
Agriculture: Prof. Ramesh Chand, Director, National Centre for Agricultural Economics and Policy Research, New Delhi
Rice: Dr T K Adhya, Director, Cuttack Rice Research Institute
and 50 others.

Links to the Programme and the Conference Book are below.

Please contact barbara.harriss-white@qeh.ox.ac.uk for further details.




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