Political Economy of Agrarian Change in South Asia
Summary
The political economy of agrarian change in South Asia encompasses the transformation of landholding patterns, labour relations and institutional frameworks that shape rural livelihoods and food systems across India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka. Historically rooted in colonial land revenue regimes and post‐independence state-led reforms, the region witnessed the Green Revolution’s technological interventions from the 1960s onwards, which reconfigured cropping systems and reinforced inequalities between irrigated and rain-fed regions. Since the 1990s, market liberalisation, trade agreements and withdrawal of state subsidies have intensified competition, spurring both consolidation into larger commercial farms and the persistence of marginal smallholders. Rising input costs, climate variability and labour out-migration have generated agrarian distress, prompting new forms of collective action—from farmer unions to cooperative networks—and growing demands for land reforms, debt relief and social protection. Contemporary research emphasises the interplay between global commodity chains, state policy bundles and class relations in shaping agrarian trajectories, highlighting the critical role of policy coherence, participatory governance and climate-resilient practices for sustainable rural development.
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Technical terms
Agrarian change: Processes of structural transformation in agriculture, including shifts in land use, production methods and rural social relations.
Land tenure: Systems and rights governing access to, control over and transfer of land parcels.
Neoliberalisation: Policy shift favouring market liberalisation, deregulation and reduced state support in agricultural sectors.
Smallholder: A farmer operating a relatively small plot of land, often dependent on family labour and limited capital.
Class relations: Social hierarchies and power dynamics among landowners, tenants, labourers and agrarian capitalists.
References
- Rurally rooted cross-border migrant workers from Myanmar, Covid-19, and agrarian movements. Agriculture and Human Values (2021).
- Jens Lerche, Alpa Shah and Barbara Harriss‐White. Journal of Agrarian Change (2013).
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