Paper short abstract:

We present a comparative analysis of how crisis in agriculture emerged, the resulting vulnerability and resilience that played out due to the environmental and institutional factors in the colonial era and the late 20th Century in the cotton growing tracts of Vidarbha.

Paper long abstract:

The cotton-growing tracts of Vidarbha have been in spotlight over the last two decades for the persistent agrarian crisis and resultant farmer suicides. The debates around the crisis have focussed on various aspects of agriculture in the region and many causes have been attributed to the persistent distress. Predominant arguments have focussed on the withdrawal of state in the neo-liberal era and the adoption of Bt cotton seeds, which have been dubbed by some as suicide seeds. These arguments seem to ignore the fact that cotton cultivation has existed for many years in the region and recurrent crises have struck these cotton farmers over these years. A study of the region using a long-durée approach which considers these historical aspects allows us to understand the current situation better (Gaurav and Ranganathan, 2023). In this paper, we focus on comparative aspects of two major crises in Vidarbha - one during the colonial era during the American Civil War in the 19th Century and the other more recent crisis starting from the 1990s. Both these crises have some common factors - lack of robust formal risk management institutions for the farmers, changes in credit uptake, environmental degradation, and changes in global economy affecting cotton prices. There have also been differences in these crises, particularly related to how farmers have responded to them. Cotton cultivation by farmers, though, has remained resilient to these and other crises in the region. We look into possible reasons for such a phenomenon while we compare these crises.