Revitalizing Rainfed Agriculture Network (RRA) is pleased to announce a fellowship program to conduct field research in India during the summer of 2015.
RRA is a network of NGOs, scholars, and activists involved in the development of rainfed agriculture in India, with ongoing interventions and data collection efforts in sites across six Indian states (Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Odisha, West Bengal, Telengana, and Jarkhand). We characterize rainfed livelihoods as complex adaptive systems comprising linked agricultural production, labor market, natural resources, and public investment sub-systems. Rainfed areas account for 60% of net sown area in India, yet they have gained little from dominant strategies of agricultural development, especially those associated with the green revolution. As such, these areas continue to have high levels of poverty and malnutrition and, recently, high rates of farmer suicides.
Our research program seeks to understand the diversity of livelihood systems in rainfed areas and the role of public investments in enabling adaptive responses that lead to improvements in well-being and human development. Our objective is to enable the development of more effective public interventions, both by creating an evidence base for policy advocacy and by leading to more informed interventions of our partner organizations on the ground.
The summer fellowship will provide the opportunity for Master’s and early-stage PhD students to participate in this exciting research agenda by conducting case studies in RRA field sites relating to one of three research themes. The research will contribute towards RRA’s knowledge base, feeding directly into the grassroots efforts of our partner organizations to better link public investments with the needs of local farming communities. In so doing, fellows will have the opportunity to design and implement a research project, while interacting with and learning from leading researchers.
Each fellow will produce a paper based on the research conducted during the fellowship to be published as part of our working papers series, and we also hope to curate edited volumes or special journal issues based on this body of work. We also expect that this opportunity will provide experience in both fieldwork and research design that will help to advance the fellows’ broader career trajectory. More generally, we envision that the fellowship program will help to foster a community of emerging scholars working on agriculture and livelihoods in rainfed regions of India and build productive linkages between our partner organizations and a broader academic community.
*For any questions, please email Prachee Sinha at [email protected].
RRA is a network of NGOs, scholars, and activists involved in the development of rainfed agriculture in India, with ongoing interventions and data collection efforts in sites across six Indian states (Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Odisha, West Bengal, Telengana, and Jarkhand). We characterize rainfed livelihoods as complex adaptive systems comprising linked agricultural production, labor market, natural resources, and public investment sub-systems. Rainfed areas account for 60% of net sown area in India, yet they have gained little from dominant strategies of agricultural development, especially those associated with the green revolution. As such, these areas continue to have high levels of poverty and malnutrition and, recently, high rates of farmer suicides.
Our research program seeks to understand the diversity of livelihood systems in rainfed areas and the role of public investments in enabling adaptive responses that lead to improvements in well-being and human development. Our objective is to enable the development of more effective public interventions, both by creating an evidence base for policy advocacy and by leading to more informed interventions of our partner organizations on the ground.
The summer fellowship will provide the opportunity for Master’s and early-stage PhD students to participate in this exciting research agenda by conducting case studies in RRA field sites relating to one of three research themes. The research will contribute towards RRA’s knowledge base, feeding directly into the grassroots efforts of our partner organizations to better link public investments with the needs of local farming communities. In so doing, fellows will have the opportunity to design and implement a research project, while interacting with and learning from leading researchers.
Each fellow will produce a paper based on the research conducted during the fellowship to be published as part of our working papers series, and we also hope to curate edited volumes or special journal issues based on this body of work. We also expect that this opportunity will provide experience in both fieldwork and research design that will help to advance the fellows’ broader career trajectory. More generally, we envision that the fellowship program will help to foster a community of emerging scholars working on agriculture and livelihoods in rainfed regions of India and build productive linkages between our partner organizations and a broader academic community.
*For any questions, please email Prachee Sinha at [email protected].