Shareen Joshi

Can Producer Associations Improve Rural Livelihoods? Evidence from Farmer Centres in India

Abstract Rural producer associations are considered a potential community-driven solution to the problems of smallholder agriculture. This article evaluates the impact of organising female farmers into producer associations in Gujarat, India. The initiative provided training, information, access to inputs, risk mitigation, and market linkages. Over 18 months, the programme weakly increased members’ non-farm income and access to output markets. It had stronger impacts on members’ awareness and utilisation of financial services. Impacts were heterogeneous, varying by pre-existing socioeconomic conditions. These findings suggest that producer associations can lower transaction costs for smallholders, but that poverty alleviation may be a longer-term prospect.

Jati inequality in rural Bihar

Caste is a persistent driver of inequality in India, and it is generally analyzed with government-defined broad categories, such as Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe. In everyday life, however, caste is lived and experienced as jati, which is a local system of stratification. Little is known about economic inequality at the jati level. This paper uses data from poor rural districts in Bihar to explore expenditure inequality at the jati level. Inequality decompositions show much more variation between jatis than between broad caste categories. The analysis finds that even within generally disadvantaged Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, some jatis are significantly worse off than others. Consistent with previous work, the paper also finds that inequality is largely driven by inequality within jatis. This finding has implications for the implementation of large-scale poverty alleviation programs: the benefits of programs intended for disadvantaged castes are concentrated among specific jatis.

Who should be at the top of bottom-up development ? a case study of the national rural livelihoods mission in Rajasthan, India

Abstract It is widely acknowledged that top-down support is essential for bottom-up participatory projects to be effectively implemented at scale. However, which level of government, national or sub-national, should be given the responsibility to implement such projects is an open question, with wide variations in practice. This paper analyses qualitative and quantitative data from a natural experiment of a large participatory project in the state of Rajasthan in India comparing central management and state-level management. We find that locally managed facilitators formed groups that were more likely to engage in collective action and be politically active, with higher savings and greater access to subsidised loans.

Red Tape: Bureaucracy, Structural Violence, and Poverty in India, by Akhil Gupta, Durham, NC, Duke University Press, 2012, 384 pp.,

culture in India is not taken up. Although the discussion of Americanism running through several chapters, including Chapter 3, is one of the main contributions of this book, it is not developed as much as it might have been in the sense that it is not in conversation with discussions of Americanism in other contexts (such as in Germany in the 1920s which also had a noteworthy relation with Indian cinema) that might have provided a stronger theoretical engagement with the links between modernity, Americanism and the formation of a mass audience. In general, the book seems somewhat brief for the complexity of the transnational contexts raised here, with an abrupt Epilogue, some typographical errors and an inadequate index. Despite these shortcomings, it is a significant addition overall to existing scholarship and one looks forward to further work from this important new scholar.

26.95 (paperback), ISBN 9780822351108

This article discusses efforts to improve maternal and child health, focusing mainly on India. Providing an analysis of fertility rates in India, the article examines the country’s fertility decline that has been less rapid compared to other BRIC countries. Efforts to improve maternal and child heath have expanded however, including the National Rural Health Mission, Accredited Social Health Activists, and Safe Motherhood Scheme (Janani Suraksha Yojana (JSY) program), a cash incentive effort. A study by the author and her colleague about the JSY program examined its impact on utilization of health-care services as well as impact on poor, less educated, and rural women. In summary, a virtuous cycle is needed for health care: fewer children, healthier mothers, healthier children, and greater investments in child quality in nutrition as well as education. These factors contribute to poverty alleviation and economic growth.