Working Paper - University of Southern Queensland...3.4 Dynamics and management of the groups and...

Improving water use for dry season agriculture by marginal and tenant farmers in the Eastern Gangetic Plains

Farmer collectives to overcome agrarian stress and inequalities: learnings and opportunities from the

Eastern Gangetic Plains

Working Paper

Authors: Fraser Sugden, Stephanie Leder, Bina Agarwal, Panchali Saikia,

Manita Raut, Anoj Kumar, Dhananjay Ray

Date: October 2018

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1. Table of Contents 1. Introduction: regional challenges of small scale agriculture .................................................. 3

1.1 Understanding agricultural collectives.................................................................................. 4

2. Agrarian and socio-economic context ..................................................................................... 5

3. Methodology and formation of the collectives ....................................................................... 9

3.1 Data collection on the collectives ....................................................................................... 10

3.2 Entering the community and establishing the four models of farmer collective ............... 10

3.3 Formation of the groups ..................................................................................................... 13

3.4 Dynamics and management of the groups and the farming cycle ..................................... 15

4. Benefits of farmer collective ................................................................................................. 16

4.1 Labour management ........................................................................................................... 16

4.2 Operation of contiguous plot .............................................................................................. 17

4.3 Increased bargaining power with external stakeholders .................................................... 18

5. Observed challenges .............................................................................................................. 20

5.1 Timekeeping and group management ................................................................................ 20

5.2 Gendered division of labor and inequities .......................................................................... 22

6. The different models, and factors supporting higher level cooperation .............................. 23

6.1 Crop type and group composition ...................................................................................... 23

6.2 Regional differences ............................................................................................................ 24

7. Learnings and further research ............................................................................................. 25

7.1 Managing labour and land .................................................................................................. 25

7.2 Building the institutions for sustainable collective formation ............................................ 26

7.3 Gender equity ...................................................................................................................... 27

8. Conclusions ............................................................................................................................ 27

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1. Introduction: regional challenges of small scale agriculture For smallholder farmers across the Global South, the peasantry is facing new patterns of stress. Climate change is converging with an increasingly unfavourable political-economic context, with dwindling plot sizes and weak terms of trade for farmers. There has however been recent interest in alternative models of farming which can support smallholders, most notable of which is the formation of collectives where farmers pool land, labour, capital and skills to create larger units of production. This had received little academic interest until a seminal paper by Agarwal (2010) which drew upon grassroots initiatives, primarily in South Asia, to advocate a new model of collective farming. This is grounded in small scale, voluntary, participatory units of production. With improvements in labour use efficiency, enhanced women’s empowerment and economies of scale, group farms can even out-perform individually owned farms in given conditions (Agarwal, 2018). Our paper reviews the challenges and opportunities posed by agricultural collectives in the Eastern Gangetic Plains. This densely populated belt which is home to around 202 million people, spans the lowlands of Nepal and the North Indian states of Bihar and West Bengal, and epitomizes the broader pattern of stress facing smallholders in peripheral regions of the Global South. For decades the region has been experiencing the combined pressures of climate change and rising input costs, underlain by deeply entrenched class, caste and gender inequalities (Sugden et al., 2014, Kishore, 2004). While the last half a century has seen numerous waves of state and non-state intervention in the sector, these have failed to support the specific needs of marginal farmers (with less than 05ha), tenants and part tenants who make up the vast majority of the rural peasantry (Sugden, 2017). This group cannot easily access the irrigation and other productivity boosting technologies. This has culminated in a long term cycle of agrarian decline, with large areas of land being left fallow during the dry months. The large scale out-migration of men has turned this region into one of the major sources of low wage migrant labour in South Asia (Sugden et al., 2014). To address these challenges, a pilot experiment which has established 16 agricultural collectives in the plains of Nepal, Bihar and West Bengal following different forms of group mobilization, was established in 2015. This paper is based upon two years of intensive research with these groups – with the aim of understanding on a qualitative level, the social and political dynamics of this radical approach to smallholder farming. The paper begins by analyzing the process through which the models evolved to meet local social, cultural and biophysical conditions, including the different ‘levels’ of cooperation. It will go on to shed light on the processes through which these different models of group farming can help producers overcome scale or labour related barriers to intensification or build their resilience to stress, while raising questions about their potential to increase group bargaining power. It will also reflect upon lingering challenges rooted in labour management, and outline opportunities for further research on group farming systems.

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1.1 Understanding agricultural collectives Agarwal (2010) makes a compelling case for a group approach to farming to overcome contemporary agrarian stresses for smallholders in the Global South such as feminisation of agriculture, poor economies of scale, diminishing plot sizes and landlessness. This approach moves beyond just taking a group approaches to purchasing inputs, securing credit and marketing – the model of most contemporary ‘cooperatives’ – but is far more radical, involving the pooling of land, capital, and even labour. Collective farming systems do of course have a chequered history, particularly given the failed experiments of the socialist bloc in the 20th century. What was problematic however in the context of Soviet style collective farms was not collective production per se, but the way in which members of the cooperatives were restricted politically (Lampland, 2002). Agarwal (2010) notes how productivity on Soviet collectives stagnated and incentives were low. This was due to their size and top-down nature, the limited participation of producers in planning (particularly women) and the fact that participation was often not voluntary. The few successful collectives which survived in the post socialist era were small in scale and democratic, with high solidarity and social affinity amongst participants. More recently there have been a growing number of successful yet scattered farmer collectives across South Asia (see Landesa, 2013) which are also grounded in smaller scale democratic units of production. When successful, the advantages of such smaller scale collectives are multifold. Through group farms, producers can make large scale investments and share risk (Agarwal, 2010). Capital can be pooled for investment in agricultural equipment such as tractors to deal with labour scarcity and in irrigation equipment to build climate resilience. Group investment can also be achieved through ordinary marketing or input supply cooperatives. However, by collectively pooling land as well, the group would have the advantage of operating a contiguous plot, supporting more efficient use of irrigation and inputs. A second benefit of collectives is that groups can be mobilised for other activities such as credit provision and training, ensuring that the land is cultivated in the most efficient way possible. Similarly, group farms extend the capacity for enhanced bargaining power in land markets, through which the groups can more effectively mobilise to take on a joint lease for land on favourable terms – a benefit which would extend particularly to women, who often lack the funds or power to operate in land markets. Finally, group farming can facilitate labour management, particularly to address the labour shortages which occur during peak times in the agricultural cycle (Agarwal, 2010).

In terms of productivity, an extensive survey of existing group and individual farms in Kerela suggested that net annual returns per farm are five times higher for group farms. They also had a 30% higher annual output per gross cropped hectare relative to individual farms, with substantially higher outputs for certain cash crops such as bananas (Agarwal, 2018). However, productivity is lower for cereal crops where the need for long term experience and high quality land was a constraint (many group farms were on poorer quality leased land). Similarly, a parallel survey in Telengana, suggested that group farms had a lower productivity than individual farms for cereals and similar productivity results and net returns for cotton – differences rooted in the social composition of groups and access to agricultural support services. Nevertheless, this needs

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to be set against the considerable non-quantifiable benefits for farmers such as enhanced links with public institutions and improved bargaining power (Agarwal, 2018). Set against this current scholarship, this paper seeks to better understand some of the complex factors which affect performance of farmer collectives, while shedding further light upon the non-quantifiable benefits as well as the challenges the model offers. It does so through analysing on a qualitative level, the process of collective formation in diverse socio-economic contexts and the internal dynamic of group farms. The paper will also track the evolution of four different models of farmer collective which are suitable for different socio-economic and cultural contexts and entail different levels of cooperation, and the processes which mediate the performance of these different groups.

2. Agrarian and socio-economic context This research was spread across six villages in Nepal, and the Indian states of Bihar and West Bengal (see Figure 1). In Nepal, the villages are Koiladi and Kanakpatti in Saptari district in the Tarai-Madhesh. In Bihar, the two villages are Bhagwatipur and Mahuyahi in Madhubani district. In West Bengal, the villages were Dholaguri in Cooch Behar district and Uttar Chakoakheti which falls in the neighboring district of Alipurduar, although both are part of the contiguous North Bengal lowland belt. All three regions are peripheral within their respective states and agriculturally dependent.

Figure 1: Collective farming pilot sites

In terms of the agrarian structure there is a clear difference between the villages in West Bengal, and those in the Gangetic heartlands of North Bihar and the Eastern Tarai of Nepal. The latter are

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split between two countries, yet share a common caste structure, economy and language (Maithili). There are deeply entrenched semi-feudal class inequalities in this region, which are rooted in the historic tax collection hierarchy from the colonial and Mughal periods in the case of Bihar, and the Rana and Gorkha dynasties in the case of Nepal (Regmi, 1976, Sugden, 2017). Landlord-tenant relations are one of the most significant challenges facing agriculture in this region (Sugden and Gurung, 2012, Alden-Wily et al., 2008, Sugden, 2017).

Table 1: Concentration of land ownership type in the survey for Madhubani

Land ownership group % of total % renting land in

% cultivated land owned by each group

landless n=455 53.40 41.76 0

marginal owner (<0.5ha) n=276

32.39 36.96 22.52

small owner (0.5-1ha) n=87

10.21 17.24 25.70

medium owner (1-2ha) n=18

2.11 16.67 10.55

large owner (2-5ha) n=8

0.94 0.00 11.56

Very large owner (>5ha) n=8

0.94 0.00 24.47

Absentee land owner

NA NA 5.20

Source: Census survey of village by research team (2015)

Table 2: Concentration of land ownership type in the survey for Saptari

% of total % renting land in

% cultivated land owned by each group

landless n=386 54.75 40.67 0


24.40 52.91 10.22


9.65 27.94 11.32


7.38 7.69 16.84


3.40 8.33 17.52

very large owner (>5ha) n=3

0.43 0.00 4.47

Absentee land owner

NA NA 19.49

Source: Census survey of village by research team (2015)

Table 3: Concentration of land ownership type in the survey for North Bengal

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Land ownership group % of total % renting land in

% land owned by each group

landless n=189 37.28 15.87 5.34


34.91 17.51 26.36


19.13 9.28 32.38


6.11 0.00 20.93


2.17 0.00 10.37

very large (>5ha) n=2 0.39 0.00 4.62 absentee landlord NA NA 17.25

Table 1 and Table 2 shows that over half of the sample in Madhubani and Saptari are landless. While many are only engaged in labour, they tend to move in and out of tenancy. 41.76% and 40.67% respectively were landless tenant farmers at the time of data collection. Marginal land owners with less than 0.5ha represent around a third of the sample in Madhubani and a quarter in Saptari. Insufficient holdings mean 36.96% and 52.91% of this group respectively also rent in land. At the apex of the agrarian structure, farmers and larger landlords with more than 2ha of land own over a third of the cultivated land in Madhubani, despite forming less than 2% of the sample. In Saptari, this group which forms less than 4% of the sample owns just under a quarter of the land, yet a substantial 19.49% of the cultivated land in the sample belongs to land owners from outside of the survey area – and this mainly includes powerful local landlords who have moved to urban areas. Tenants most commonly pay a substantial 50% of the harvest to landlords through a sharecropping or bhaataiya and usually also have to meet the input costs1.

While this is a drought prone region, the aquifers are rich and shallow tubewell irrigation is widespread. However, the level of irrigation is associated with one’s economic status (Sugden et al., 2014). For example, tenant farmers are unlikely to bore tubewells on land which does not belong to them and are dependent on landlords. Even with access to a tubewell, the rent burden discourages further spending on inputs, and sharecropping by its nature discourages investment, as the landlord will retain half of any increase in production due to irrigation.

Further east in North Bengal, the agrarian history up until the 1960s is not dissimilar to Mithilanchal, and this region was also under the zamindari system in the colonial era, including the related jotedari system in the region which encompasses the field sites. However, land reforms in the 1970s transformed agriculture in West Bengal (Banerjee et al., 2002), and the region is a domain where small scale peasant agriculture persists, rather than tenant farming.

Table 2 shows that while a third of the sample are landless, only 15% engage in agriculture as tenants, with many dependent on the non-farm sector or migrant labour. The largest group are marginal and small owner cultivators who form over half the sample, and own a similar share of

1 Sharecropping is present on 84.74% of the rented land in Kanakpatti, 99.38% in Bhagwatipur and 92.49% in Mahuyahi. The remainder of the plots take a fixed share of grain as rent.

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the cultivated land. While some engage in tenancy, it is often between farmers of a similar economic status as a way of managing land and labour deficits. There is a limited big farmer class or even landlord class, yet as a result there is relatively limited exposure to irrigation systems, and in Uttar Chakoakheti even the use of groundwater is rare, with most farmers cultivating a single paddy crop. There are few pump sets and tube wells to rent, although the much higher rainfall in this region allows some rainfed cultivation outside the monsoon.

Table 4: Concentration of land in the survey for North Bengal: Dholaguri and Uttar Chakoakheti

Farmers Category category Aggregate area of land owned by this category (ha)

No of households in group

% of total cultivated land owned

% size of group

landless labourer 0.00 51.00 0.00 12.78

pure tenant 2.01 30.00 0.87 7.52

part tenant 14.53 40.00 7.19 10.03

marginal owner cultivator <0.5ha 33.95 146.00 18.67 36.59

small owner cultivator 0.5-1ha 61.10 88.00 33.30 22.06

medium owner cultivator 1-2 ha 40.66 31.00 21.88 7.77

large owner cultivator (<2ha) 35.73 13 18.09 3.26

Total 187.97 399 100.00 100.00

All three sites, Bihar, lowland Nepal and West Bengal, are now facing stresses associated with climate change and political-economic processes at different scales such as price rises for inputs and food (Pant, 2011), rural monetisation (Sugden et al., 2014). The already high barriers in accessing irrigation are aggravated by rising costs of diesel and equipment, further increasing the vulnerability of farmers to drought, while agricultural programmes in the region fail to address structural barriers faced by women farmers in particular (Leder et al., 2017).

Against this backdrop, cyclical or long term male out-migration has become a key component of household livelihoods at least to meet cash needs (Sugden et al., 2016). This includes movement to Indian cities, or in the case of Saptari in Nepal, to the Gulf states or Malaysia. Women are therefore increasingly responsible not only for domestic work and labour intensive agricultural tasks, but also are obliged to enter a new space which was once the male domain. This includes overseeing land preparation and irrigation, as well as the management of inputs and labour.

As the literature on the so-called feminization of agriculture has pointed out (Adhikari and Hobley, 2011, Maharajan et al., 2012, Paris et al., 2005), this can be associated with both new vulnerabilities and opportunities depending on the household’s economic status. What is a particularly significant concern in the context of the Eastern Gangetic Plains is the hugely increased workload for women, particularly women headed households (Sugden et al., 2016, Hadi, 2001). The out-migration of males also creates challenges for women who stay behind, as access to and control over resources such as water and land are strongly connected with class and caste divisions. Gendered norms and behavior constrain opportunities for women to engage

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in public and economic activities, which adversely impact opportunities for women to access knowledge, acquire skills and strengthen bargaining power to access resources.

In Bihar and Nepal, where landlordism combines with climatic, demographic and economic stresses, radical redistributive land reforms could support the transformation of smallholder agricuture. However, this appears unlikely so long as landed interests remain entrenched in the bureaucracy, which would prevent the kind of grassroots mobilisation which made reforms possible in 1970s West Bengal (see Banerjee et al., 2002, Alden-Wily et al., 2008). Even in the case of post reform West Bengal, the predominance of marginal and often fragmented holdings make investments and expansion of irrigation unfeasible for many farmers. At the same time, land reforms alone would not address the glaring gender inequalities in agriculture and the rising work burden associated with feminization. It is against this backdrop that the establishment of farmer collectives are potentially a viable and gender empowering option for marginal and tenant farmers. The farmer collective experiments in this paper have their origin in the work by the Madhubani based grassroots NGO and project partner, Sakhi, which broke new ground by setting up fishing collectives in the 1990s and 2000s, empowering in the underprivileged Mallah (traditional fisher) community to lobby for collective fishing rights to communal ponds. Inspired by this success, staff from Sakhi and the International Water Management Institute (IWMI)2 tabled the prospect of replicating the collective model to address the structural barriers to dry season farming amongst marginal and tenant farmers. It was in this context that the ACIAR-funded project “Improving water use for dry season agriculture by marginal and tenant farmers” was born, and the pilot farms the project established are the focus of this study. Starting from the rabi (winter) dry season of 2015-16, seventeen farmer groups were established across six study sites (see Figure 1). The groups piloted different models of cooperation in production, combined with the phased introduction of technical innovations in irrigation and water management. The rationale was to observe the social, economic and technical progress of different forms of collective production, identify opportunities and challenges, and identify a model which could revolutionize agrarian relations and mechanisms for engagement with farmers, in the Eastern Gangetic Plains and the wider region. This was a collaborative project and the pilot research was supported by an experienced local NGO or CBO and a government partner in each region (see Table 5)3. Overall oversight and leadership was provided by the International Water Management Institute and the University of Southern Queensland.

3. Methodology and formation of the collectives

2 IWMI had for several years been conducting research on livelihood resilience and land poverty in the Eastern Gangetic Plains, 3 The NGOs/CBOs were primarily responsible for social mobilization, while the government partners would be more focused on technical support, although to some extent both institutions were involved in both types of engagement with the farmers

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3.1 Data collection on the collectives A shortlist of villages across four districts in the three regions (Nepal Tarai-Madhesh, Bihar and North Bengal) was prepared where the challenges facing smallholder agriculture were representative of the larger region4. After focus groups in each village, a ranking tool based upon key criterion was used to narrow down our selection to 6 villages – 2 in each region. A census carried out in 2015 collected extensive livelihood data on every household in the villages. After the establishment of pilot the collectives, a series of timed field visits at different points in the cropping cycle were carried out between 2015 and 2018 in an iterative process of engagement. Visits were focused on informally meeting the groups in a focus group setting and collecting key information on challenges, opportunities and group management. A separate spell of focused data collection also took place at the end of the first and second year of cultivation in the winter of 2017 and 2018. This included a set of semi-structured household interviews and focus groups which analysed the day to day functioning and management of groups, land and labour management and conflict resolution. A group meeting of farmer group representatives from all 6 sites which was also held in Madhubani in February 2017 to collectively reflect upon some of the issues raised in the interviews and focus groups and encourage debate and cross learning amongst participants. The farmer interviews and FGDs are listed in Table 4. Most importantly, a significant source of data was the insights provided by the field teams themselves who were based in each of the sites throughout the three year period. They would produce case studies on the groups on a seasonal basis around three themes household livelihoods, collective action and access to technology.

Table 5: Interviews and Focus Group Discussions conducted in field sites

Site FGDs Interviews

Bihar, Madhubani district 30 42 West Bengal, Cooch Behar and Alipurduar districts 29 44

Nepal, Saptari district 13 14

Total 72 100

3.2 Entering the community and establishing the four models of farmer collective Social mobilization to gauge interest in the new approach, introduce the project and identify potential recruits to form groups was initiated in mid-2015 through a series of community meetings. From initial consultations, while farmers acknowledged the benefits of group farming, it became apparent that flexible models were necessary to account for (i) the ease at which farmers will shift from individual to group cultivation, and (ii) different land ownership regimes.

Agarwal (2014) notes that a group approach to cultivation can involve both varying levels of cooperation. This depends firstly on the extent of collective action, and secondly, whether or not this is restricted to just one or multiple activities in the farming cycle. This flexibility is important

4 The shortlist was generated using census data on landlessness and based upon the extensive knowledge of the region by local project partners.

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when tensions arise between farmers’ ‘collective’ and ‘individual’ rights. Cooperation can in its most loose form entail what is termed by Agarwal (2014) as ‘minimal cooperation’, such as shared input procurement, although taking collective action a step further to ‘medium cooperation’ may include farmers jointly purchasing equipment. Cooperation can occur for multiple tasks, and if for example, shared marketing was combined with group crop planning, it could be termed ‘multi-purpose, limited cooperation’. In all the above, the cultivation is still carried out by individual households. This project however, was aimed at moving towards higher level cooperation, whereby labour is also pooled, what is termed by Agarwal (2014) as ‘comprehensive cooperation’, or ‘multi-purpose comprehensive cooperation’, when multiple tasks are involved.

During initial community consultations, it was clear that establishing multi-purpose medium cooperation such as the pooling of land for irrigation and cooperation in marketing, was not considered problematic. However, the pooling of labour, what may be considered the highest level of cooperation, was considered as more risky, in spite of the opportunities it offered in terms of saving time and efficiency. Throughout the project therefore, different groups ended up pursuing different levels of cooperation – a process which itself offered opportunities for learning.

As noted above, flexibility was also required to account for different land ownership regimes. In Bihar and Nepal, there is a lot of land which is owned by smallholders, combined with a vast area under tenancy, whereby rent absorbs much of the surplus. The lease market itself is an entry point for collective formation, whereby groups can rent in land for cultivation, so long as it an agreement is reached with land owners for a more favourable fixed rent rather than sharecropping contract. This has the added advantages of increasing tenants’ bargaining power with landlords, while the improved productivity could potentially reduce the share of the annual output or profit which is absorbed by rent. This is the model which was pursued by most of the group farms in the study by Agarwal (2018). In the two West Bengal villages by contrast, there is virtually no surplus land to relinquish for collective formation, and with only a small large farmer class, most the land belongs to small holders. In this context, new mechanisms of cooperation were piloted to facilitate the pooling of land and labour within the context of smallholder ownership.

Throughout the life cycle of the project, four models evolved, which adapted to the preexisting willingness of farmers for different levels of cooperation and the land ownership context (see Table 7). These models emerged through an iterative process of engagement between the farmers and the research team which started during initial community meetings, and extended (via farmer group meetings) for several months between the establishment of the farmer collectives and the onset of cultivation. Through these meetings, discussion was focused on the merits, drawbacks and practicalities of different mechanisms to collectively organize land, labour and capital.

In Bihar and Nepal, where tenant farmers (who form the majority) were willing to engage in high level cooperation, farmers and the project team developed a model whereby groups would lease land collectively (rather than on an individual basis), farm it as a group, and share costs and outputs. This became known as model 1. In West Bengal, where groups were content with higher level cooperation, yet land was unavailable for lease, the most appropriate option agreed upon

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was for group members to consolidate their plots to allow group farming. This became known as model 2. The sharing of labour, costs and output was the same as under model 1, except rather than the land being leased, it would be provided to the collective by group members themselves.

The disinclination of farmers in some communities to pool labour paved the way for the development of a third and fourth model which allowed medium levels of cooperation. For some groups in Bihar and Nepal, it was agreed that farmers would collectively lease a contiguous plot of land (like in model 1). They would cooperate for some activities including training, land preparation (e.g ploughing), irrigation and marketing, and would sometimes exchange labour during busy spells, but would be responsible for their own individual sub-plots within the larger group plot. This became known as model 3. For some sites such as those in West Bengal dominated by smallholder owner cultivation, as well as for some owner cultivators in Madhubani, a fourth model was created. Model 4 includes marginal land owning farmers with their own fields within in a single contiguous area who are willing to cooperate in the production process, but not share labour as per model 2.

The groups all were farmer led and given the opportunity to evolve organically. As a result, there were some shifts throughout the project life cycle. For example, if the collective labour pooling became unmanageable under model 1, the group could shift to model 3. Similarly a group pursuing of model 2 could in theory reform under model 4. The opposite shift could also occur. If farmers were uncomfortable initially with collective labour pooling, they could begin farming individual sub-plots, but shift to collective labour at a later stage once the group has become more cohesive.

Some groups evolved to form mixed models. Amongst two groups in Saptari, Nepal, for example, part of the leased land was set aside for individual farming under model 3, with the remainder for group farming under model 1. Similarly, in all the sites in North Bengal, land was cultivated collectively during the dry season under model 2, whereas during the monsoon farmers cultivate the land individually under model 4. The models which were established in each village as of early 2018 (including changes) are outlined in Table 8.

Table 6: Four models of collective

Collective model

Levels of cooperation

Land arrangement Labour arrangement

Target group

Model 1 Multipurpose comprehensive cooperation

Collective leasing of single contiguous area

Pooled labour within group

Landless /Tenants

Model 2 Multipurpose comprehensive cooperation

Consolidation of private plots under single contiguous area

Pooled labour within group

Small owner cultivators

Model 3 Multipurpose medium cooperation

Collective leasing of single contiguous area, but maintaining individual sub-plots,

Household labour on own land. cooperation for land preparation,

Landless/Tenants

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inputs and irrigation

Model 4 Multipurpose medium cooperation

Maintenance of individual sub-plots within single contiguous area

Household labour on own land. Cooperation for land preparation, inputs and irrigation

Small owner cultivators

3.3 Formation of the groups Efforts were made to gather volunteers to form groups which were relatively homogenous in terms of the socio-economic status of farmers – and all members were expected to be marginal farmers who were tenants or who owned plots of less than 0.5ha. Given that the project had a strong focus on reaching out to those affected by male out-migration, women members were sought. It was difficult to enforce homogeneity, and given the voluntary nature of membership, there was interest from male farmers also, and some groups emerged into mixed groups (see Table 6). There were often flexible arrangements also at a household level, particularly in West Bengal, whereby both male and female household members participate. In all the groups, the team attempted to enroll some farmers with a demonstrated leadership ability or experience. This included efforts to enroll members with slightly higher levels of education and a broader social network. This is important, as while the forming groups with similar social or gender backgrounds can reduce conflicts, total homogeneity in terms of socio-economic status is not always helpful as it can reduce the collective social capital of the group (Agarwal, 2018).

Farmers had multiple motivations to join a collective, and inevitably extended to perceived benefits other than those associated with collectivization itself. This included the potential to access “free” irrigation technology and the opportunity for support in dry season vegetable production. However, many farmers recognized the potential for more efficient use of labour and time, and the fact that collective labour allowed them to reach a level of productivity not possible on individual farms. These advantages became apparent to farmers in an organic matter. After observing the pilot farms, two separate groups in Madhubani and North Bengal respectively formed autonomously, requesting support from the project team to play a facilitating role.

Table 7: Key characteristic of farmer groups in each site

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Site

Village and group no. Size

% women

Caste or ethnic group

Collective Model as of Summer 2018

Total Land Size(ha) Land tenure

Labour and produce shared

Saptari, Nepal

Kanakpatti 1 8 100% Adivasi (Tharu)

1 0.29 Collective lease √

3 0.57 Collective lease

Kanakpatti 2 8 87% Tharu and Muslim

1 0.22 Collective lease √

3 0.74 Collective lease

Kanakpatti 3 7 71% Dalit 3 0.81 Collective lease

Koiladi 1 6 33% Adivasi (Dhanuk) 3 0.81 Collective lease

Koiladi 2 6 67% Adivasi (Dhanuk) 3 0.51 Collective lease √

Madhubani, Bihar state, India

Bhagwatipur 1 8 38% Dalit 1 >>> 3 1.5 Collective lease √

Bhagwatipur 2 9 11% Dalit 4 2.1 Individually owned plots

Bhagwatipur 3 7 29% Dalit and Yadav 4 3.2 Individually owned plots

Bhagwatipur 4 5 100% Dalit and Yadav 1 >>> 3 0.8 Collective lease √

Mahuyahi 1 6 50% Muslim and Yadav 3 1.0 Consolidation of private plots √

Mahuyahi 2 5 100% Dalit 1 1.08 Collective lease √

Mahuyahi 3 (youth group) 4 0% Dalit 1 1.61 Collective lease √

North Bengal (Alipurduar and Cooch Behar districts), West Bengal state, India

Dholaguri 1 8 25% Rajbanshi 2 (4 in monsoon)

1.19 Consolidation of private plots √





Dholaguri 5 100% Rajbanshi 2 (4 in monsoon)


Uttar Chakoakheti 1 8 0% Adivasi (Oraon) 2 (4 in monsoon) 2.39 Consolidation of private plots √




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3.4 Dynamics and management of the groups and the farming cycle All groups have a management committee including a chairperson, secretary and treasurer and convene monthly meetings, or more regularly at busy times of the agricultural cycle. For models 1 and 2, where all labour is shared, meetings involve the planning labour and input contributions for the current and future cropping cycle and the division of tasks. For models 3 and 4, the meetings are generally more focused on the tasks where there is cooperation, such as the management of irrigation equipment, although they also engage in joint planning for cropping, while sharing thoughts on when to irrigate, what inputs to apply and techniques.

With regards to financial management, in all groups, members deposit money every month which is used for pay for inputs. In Nepal this is 100 NPR (approx $1), in India sites it is 100 INR (approx $2). There are some differences between the models. In model 1 and 2 which involve pooling of labour, costs and outputs, all input costs are pooled using the fund, and additional contributions are sought in case there is a shortfall. In model 3 and 4, the group fund is used to cover the costs of land preparation and maintenance of the pump set5.

Land preparation is generally the first task in a cropping cycle, and given that all groups farm contiguous plots, ploughing using a tractor becomes more feasible and the costs are sometimes covered by the group fund. After the ploughing on farms under models 1 and 2, farmers meet at pre-arranged times for key activities in the farming cycle such as sowing, transplanting, weeding, and harvesting. For models 3 and 4, farmers are responsible for their own plots after initial land preparation.

Farmers following all four models still cooperate over irrigation, and groups have access to a range of equipment including solar, diesel and electric pumps, which were provided as part of the technical workpackage of the project. Water allocation is straightforward for farmers following model 1 and 2, as all the land is irrigated at once for each crop. For groups following models 3 and 4, farmers must allocate the water on a turn by turn basis according to need.

Following the harvest, all profits and output for groups using models 1 and 2 are shared. Paddy, wheat and other staples are shared amongst group members and better quality vegetables are generally sold to generate cash for the group fund to invest for the next season, with the rest being distributed to the group, usually for home consumption. For group 3 and 4, the harvest is kept by each individual farmer for their respective plot, with some cooperation for marketing.

Under model 1 which is a pure collective on rented land, the fixed rent is taken directly from the final output either in kind or in cash (after selling the crop). Under model 3 where a jointly rented plot is used for individual cultivation, the rent is collected from each individual farmer in cash or in kind. For model 2 where small owner cultivators have consolidated their plots for collective production, a ‘rent’ needs to be factored into the final distribution of produce. This is because not all members have contributed the same sized plot of land. A reasonable cash rent for each

5 Additional funds for the group have been raised in Koiladi of Nepal by the renting out of the pump set to neighbouring farmers below the market rate.

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plot of land provided is calculated, and this is accounted for when members are receiving their share of the harvest.

4. Benefits of farmer collective

4.1 Labour management One of the primary advantages of the collective under models 1 and 2 which pool labour, is the opportunity it presents to save time, a key issue for women in the context of male outmigration, where the work burden has had a long lasting and negative impact on women’s wellbeing. The advantages become apparent when one observes the labour allocation requirements throughout the agricultural cycle. Key tasks such as harvesting and paddy transplantation generally require large amounts of labour in a short period of time. These have productivity implications. For example, under conventional farming systems, delays in paddy transplantation after the early rains due to a lack of labour can result in seedlings drying out. Most farmers who lack sufficient family labour must hire in some labour during these busy times, although workers are often not available during critical windows, and migration has aggravated shortages of both family and outside labour.

The pooling of labour helps address these challenges. In Saptari, a farmer mentioned that time can be managed efficiently “if it takes for me 3 days to get one work done at the field, with group, it takes just half a day or one”. This intervention in fact builds upon indigenous institutions which have evolved to cope with seasonal labour shortages in other rice based agricultural systems over the centuries. In Madhubani households (usually neigbours) sometimes exchange labour for paddy transplantation under a system known as badalan, while a similar system known as hauli exists in North Bengal. The latter is a particularly important cultural institution during the monsoon, and a day of labour generally ends with a feast at the home of the household whose plot was planted with paddy that day. Labour exchange institutions are in fact widespread in across rice based agricultural systems in Asia with other examples including the parma or nogar system of exchanging labour between households in the hills of Nepal (Messerschmidt, 1981) the madaiti system in the adivasi belt of Chotanagpur (Shah, 2013), as well as the dan công (mutual aid) groups amongst smallholders to support heavy farm work in the Mekong Delta of Vietnam (Tuan et al., 2014).

The collective models 1 and 2 extend the benefits of indigenous labour exchange mechanisms beyond just meeting the temporary field based labour demand and allow a division of labour throughout the agricultural cycle. A number of group members noted that in the past, each farmer would be responsible for tasks such as going to the market to buy fertilizer or to sell vegetables. Now it can be delegated to one member, giving remaining group members time to engage in other activities. Each group member also brings in new skills and experiences, and knowledge in the group is in effect, ‘pooled’ along with the land itself. The capacity of the group to work together to save time has fostered a sense of belonging and solidarity, referred to by some members as “bhaichara” (literally, brotherhood).

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For farmers cultivating under models 3 and 4 which involve individual plots, there was some exchange of labour still during busy times – and this usually involves the indigenous badalan or hauli institution being followed between group members.

4.2 Operation of contiguous plot A second primary benefits of all four collective models is the capacity for several farmers to operate a contiguous plot of a size which optimizes the efficiency of irrigation and land preparation. In the baseline data, it was common for farmers to operate multiple plots scattered in different locations. This is illustrated starkly in Table 7. In Madhubani for example marginal and small owner respectively operated 3.07 and 4.03 plots on average, at a size of just 0.11 and 0.19 respectively. Even landless tenants cultivated multiple plots. For households who both own and rent land, it was common for them to operate between 5 and 7 very small plots of land, as they cultivate whichever land is available for rent, which may involve leasing from more than one landlord. Plots were often far from the house, adding to the labour burden, with average walking time being 15.23 minutes, although it was 17.43 minutes for those also engaged in tenancy, given that rented plots are often further from the home. Plots themselves were often so small that investment in irrigation or mechanization was unfeasible, particularly when they were scattered in different locations. In Bhagwatipur of Madhubani, group members reported that in the past, the amount of land which was cultivated in the winter dry season depended on how much residual monsoon moisture was left in the soil. Given the impracticalities of irrigation and the high costs, large areas would be left empty after the rice was harvested, awaiting next years’ rains.

Similar results were evident with regards to Saptari, where farmers operated on average 2.65 plots, with plot sizes varying from just 0.21ha on average for marginal owner to 0.33ha for tenants. Households engaged in tenancy had to walk on average 18.74 minutes to reach their fields. In North Bengal the number of plots operated are slightly lower, although plot sizes are similarly low, and over 40% of farmers did have multiple plots, with several marginal owner cultivator households also engaged in tenancy operating between 5 and 6 small plots.

The collectives by contrast all consist of a single contiguous plot, and the size is considerably larger than what was previously farmed by individual farms from marginal or tenant households (see Table 7), at 1.84ha on average in Madhubani to 0.56ha in Saptari and 1.34ha in North Bengal, equivalent to the plot size operated by larger more mechanized farmers. Farmers noted how a larger contiguous plot makes it more economical to use technologies such as tractors to deal with labour scarcity, and most importantly, irrigation becomes more practical and efficient. Moving a heavy pump set between distant plots can add to the time and labour requirements associated with irrigation, and in the case of electric pumps it is not practical if a power source is not available nearby. This brings benefits to both those sharing labour under models 1 and 2, as well as those who are farming their own plots under models 3 and 4 as their fields are always joined together. Productivity was further enhanced through more efficient water management techniques such as ridge and furrow methods for crops such as potatoes. The collective mobilization of labour made land preparation for relatively larger fields more practical.

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Table 8: Average number of plots farmed by farmer category prior to pilot farm initation

Farm category Madhubani Saptari North Bengal

Avg no plots farmed

Avg size of plot

Avg no plots farmed

Avg size of plot

Avg no plots farmed

Avg size of plot

Pre intervention village level data

Landless tenant

2.27 0.17 1.78 0.33 1.41 0.27

marginal owner (<0.5ha)

3.07 0.11 2.58 0.21 1.48 0.21

small owner (0.5-1ha)

4.03 0.19 3.51 0.25 1.79 0.39

medium owner (1-2 ha)

5.39 0.28 3.55 0.38 2.12 0.60

large owner (2ha-5ha)

4.88 0.72 4.25 0.77 2.27 0.98

Very large owner (>5ha)

3.38 2.20 3.67 1.63 4.50 1.19

Total 3.05 0.19 2.65 0.32 1.66 0.37

Post intervention collectives 1 1.84 1 0.56 1 1.34

For models 1 and 2, the challenges and conflicts associated with sharing a pump set are resolved, as water is applied to different sub-plot in the most efficient order and according to the needs of the crops alone, and farmers do not need to ‘compete’ for water or wait their turn6. A widespread problem in the groundwater economy of the Eastern Gangetic Plains where farmers have to rent pump sets is competition for equipment at times of peak demand, such as during the paddy transplantation (Sugden et al., 2014). This was a challenge for farmers not involved in the groups who were dependent upon pump rental markets, but even for those sharing a pump under models 3 and 4 where farmers are responsible for their own sub-plot. Group members following model 4 in Bhagwatipur for example, complained that they had to resort to renting in a pump as other members were using the pump at a critical time. The farmers did however benefit from greater efficiency, as the pump did not need to be transported from a different part of the village. When one’s turn comes, group members simply needed to move the delivery pipe to one’s own field.

There are also cost benefits for those farming a contiguous plot. Farmers noted that when fertilizer is purchased in bulk for the group, as occurs under groups 1 and 2, the cost is inevitably lower, and one only needs to pay for the transportation cost once, not to mention the saved time. At the time of writing farmers in models 3 and 4 were mostly purchasing their own fertilizer, but there is the potential for cooperation in input procurement also, allowing all to benefit from these savings.

4.3 Increased bargaining power with external stakeholders Another important benefit of collective formations, is the potential for the group solidarity to be translated into greater bargaining power between landlords and marginal farmers. Ties of 6 The challenges of synchronising irrigation was one of the drivers which encouraged the collective exchange of labour in the Mekong delta in both the socialist and pre-socialist period (Tuan et al, 2014).

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dependence on landlords have changed in the Eastern Gangetic Plains, with the growth of absentee landlordism, greater political awareness and a decline in interlinked contracts. Nevertheless, the unequal power relations are still acute, most notably in light of the limited incentives or interest for landlords to invest in the land or negotiate over rents (Sugden, 2017). Against this backdrop, collective leases which are pursued under model 1 and model 3 have increased group members bargaining power with landlords and have contributed to some erosion of unequal power relationships, although this is only partial. This was exemplified in Koiladi of Saptari, a village with severe inequalities between the Rajput landlords and Dhanuk (an Adivasi group from the Tarai) tenants. The landlord leasing land to one group had over the decades developed informal yet exploitative expectations that his sharecropping tenants would provide (alongside rent) additional unpaid labour duties, mostly around domestic chores or tasks on his land such as looking after livestock. He complained that since the farmers took on a collective lease, the farmers were unwilling to carry out additional unpaid work. Oral contracts with individual farmers was the norm in the past, and the informality made it easier for the landlord to mobilise his political and ideological authority extract additional concessions from tenants such as unpaid labour obligations. The negotiation of a written contract for the collective which clearly stipulates what the farmers must provide (i.e. a fixed cash rent) combined with the strength of provided by the group approach to leasing, has given farmers the confidence to refuse to provide additional services which are beyond the terms of the contract. The formalization of the relationship and breaking down of ideological obligations was echoed when the landlord complained that the farmers only work on their leased land and rarely visit his house unless it was to pay the contracted rent. This culminated in the landlord trying to push the farmers back into a sharecropping arrangement, for which it was reportedly easier to extract additional services. When the farmer group refused, the landlord terminating the contract after two years of cultivation. Fortunately, the group reorganized with some changes in membership and some new members, and moved their irrigation equipment to a new plot owned by a different landlord. They had just collectively applied for a free tubewell provided by the irrigation department. Similar instances of landlords expecting informal ‘contributions’ were evident in another site in Saptari, where the landlords’ family would come to help themselves to vegetables from the groups’ field. This was also challenged openly by the farmers group on repeated occasions, and during a recent visit by the landlord, the group demanded payment for the vegetables, which was duly given. In a context whereby rents were frequently non-negotiable, there were several reported instances whereby farmers had been able to negotiate concessions from landlords – building upon their group strength and increased confidence. In Madhubani, a Dalit group (Mahuyahi 2 – see Table 8) pursuing model 1 on 1.2ha of land were actually approached by the landlord who requested if they could take on more land, given that they had been reliable tenants. In the past, landlords had been unwilling to provide tenancies to the Dalit community. The collective members felt their bargaining power could be increased if they negotiated jointly with another group (a smaller youth led collective). They therefore arranged a lease for 4.45ha of land for both groups (1.6ha for youth group), and negotiated the rent down from Rs12,000 per bigha to

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Rs10,000. Similarly, a collective in Saptari which diversified into group fishery production negotiated to bring down the annual lease of their pond from Nepali rupees 100,000 ($950) originally proposed by the land owner, to just 17,000 ($160). Landlords have even gone as far as offering to contribute to the costs of inputs and land improvement, such as provision of bamboo fencing. There are of course limits to this collective bargaining strength. In part, greater cooperation of landlords is sometimes connected with the latter’s perception it will benefit them personally in terms of increased productivity due to the externally supported irrigation investment. The shift towards fixed rent tenancies has benefitted tenants, but for landlords it has provided them a guaranteed income – and in the case of Koiladi in Nepal, there had been pressure by land owners to increase the rent after the installation of irrigation equipment. The local historical and political-economic context is significant. In Koiladi, there has been a long history of conflict between landlords and tenants which were deeply imbued with caste inequalities. A group from the Koiladi Dalit community attempted to negotiate a lease of land, but even with intervention by the project partners, negotiations fell through, given a history of inter-caste conflict, mostly originating in an ownership dispute over a village pond between the Rajput landlords and members of the Dalit community. Aside from increased bargaining power with landlords, it is worth noting that the farmer groups been used as an institution through which they can claim government entitlements and support. In Saptari, subsidies (seeds and fertilizer) are offered to cooperatives with a minimum of 20 members. Three farmer groups therefore merged so they could access these. Collectives are also powerful tools for horizontal farmer to farmer spread of knowledge and political awareness, and these can often spread beyond the confines of the group given the extended networks each member is already integrated into. For example, in Uttar Chakoakheti of North Bengal, a predominantly Adivasi (tribal) village, the farmer group members were instrumental in encouraging other villagers to apply for Scheduled Tribe status, as well as make a collective application for government installed tubewells, and even land ownership certificates.

5. Observed challenges

5.1 Timekeeping and group management The main challenge of the collectives was over labour sharing under models 1 and 2, and the fact that not all members of the group were putting in labour where and when required. The lack of incentives to maximize labour input to jointly managed farms has been a long running critique of collective production, as shown from socialist contexts such as Vietnam (Dang, 2009) and Tanzania (Scott, 1998). However, in the context of this case study it would be wrong to assume farmers were consciously choosing not to work or ‘free riding’. Farmers mostly acknowledged that group farming saved them all time to spend on other activities, and it was in the interests for farmers to put in the labour hours. However, a consistent message from interviews and focus groups with the farmers was that it was difficult to find a time when all farmers were available,

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or coordinate members’ busy work schedules. It was remarked frequently that if one person comes, all need to be present, and if some members are busy, then conflict can arise. One of the women a group in Bhagwatipur, Madhubani states:

“Often there are allegations such as ‘I did more work than you’; ‘I did all the work yesterday and you did not, you should do it today’; ‘I harvested most of the paddy crops compared to others in the group’”.

There are several processes at play which contextualize these challenges. The collectives were not large enough for members to meet their entire subsistence needs and most also had other plots of land which were rented privately, while some had small owned plots. Some farmers reported a tendancy for members to prioritise their own individual farms outside of the collective, a problem which was common in socialist Tanzania, Vietnam and China (Scott, 1998, Dang, 2009, O'Leary and Watson, 1982).

This was often for pragmatic reasons linked to the need to coordinate certain activities such as plantation with when water is available. For example, one respondent noted that if one has just called labourers to their private plot, and had started applying irrigation, then that work must be finished first if they were subsequently called to work on the collective. Failure for members to come on time resulted in delays for key activities on the collective, with a knock on effect on productivity. One female group member in Koiladi reflected on these challenges:

‘Many times we could not apply water for vegetable cultivation as none of us had time and the crops dried-up. The Brinjals (eggplant) got damaged as we could not irrigate it on time. We don’t have men to support us in our agricultural work. Sometimes my father-in-law helps’

The above testimony also notes the challenges for women in particular, whose work burden has already expanded significantly in the context of male out migration, and are responsible for the management of their own fields and livestock (outside the collective) as well as reproductive tasks such as preparing food and collection of dung for fuel. Some women were also involved in outside livelihood activities to supplement their income such as in Koiladi of Saptari, where a number of women would sell snacks in the local haatiya, or periodic market. For male members in North Bengal, many were engaged in off farm labour – including work under the MNREGA programme, and some of the Adivasi community in Uttar Chakoakheti migrated seasonally to Bhutan, leaving their family members to take on their group responsibilities. This inevitably conflicted with work on the collective, as the members had little control over when labour was available.

While the North Bengal groups were able to weather these challenges, it in Koiladi of Saptari and Bhagwatipur of Madhubani four groups shifting from labour pooling under model 1 to individual plot cultivation under model 3 after several seasons. Farmers in Koiladi noted that although it may take them longer overall, they can fit in work on their allocated field in the collectively leased area whenever they are free, and do not need to coordinate with others. In Bhagwatipur, a midway solution devised by members involved the group subdividing so smaller teams could work on the fields on assigned days of the week. However, this resulted in mistrust between the

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smaller teams over which had put in more work, while during the harvest of vegetables (which are harvested continuously over several weeks), there was mistrust between the teams over how much had been sold on each day. The group eventually took the same path as the two Koiladi groups and reverted to individual cultivation. The groups however maintained partial cooperation over leasing, irrigation and marketing, with some also cooperating for land preparation, and exchanging labour amongst members at peak times.

5.2 Gendered division of labor and inequities A key aim of the collectives was to provide women with an avenue for empowerment – and while the results were positive, particularly for women headed households, challenges still remained due to the structural inequalities which are deeply entrenched in the Eastern Gangetic Plains. Traditional gender roles posed challenges, particularly in female only groups. Women had to depend upon male household members or outside labourers to take part in what were considered male tasks such as land preparation, and most importantly transporting and starting the pump, laying pipes for irrigation and digging furrows. Gender norms were deeply engrained, as one women stated in Koiladi.

“How can girls operate pumps? I get scared to use pump, what if I am electrocuted? Look at my daughter, she does not know anything.”

A male farmer in Koiladi also noted his ‘concerns’ regarding female work roles, exemplifying the prevailing attitude that certain ‘technical’ tasks such as irrigation fall outside of the female domain.

“How will women irrigate pump? Women know how to switch the pump on and off. They do not know what to do if motor does not draw water after switching the system on. In this case, women may damage the motor (“motor jalaile sakbi”).. I know that if motor does not function, I check the motor fan with a stick and switch on the machine again. Women can irrigate once it is functioning but if there are problems in the motor, women cannot fix it. For example, a motor should be put 3 inch lower from boarding, otherwise it will not draw water properly.”

In some respects the ability to draw upon male labour could be advantageous for women as it encouraged the voluntary support from male household members and gave them also a sense of joint ownership in what were generally women run enterprises. However, this could also become a burden as not all groups could mobilise male family members, particularly for women headed households, and they were dependent often on finding male wage labourers from outside, adding to the costs of production. There were some positive shifts however, and in Bhagwatipur of Bihar and Kanakpatti of Nepal, women had started operating pumps on their own, as well as taking on other tasks formerly in the male domain negotiating with tractor operators or ploughmen for land preparation. As one women stated in Kanakpatti with reference to irrigation:

“You know, madame, when we (girls) were small, we were not allowed to ride bicycle or go to school. I have learned these skills to cycle and write. Similarly, I have learned how to operate pumps and sprays machine. So, I know I can operate it well in future.”

Another challenge associated with gender inequalities related to mixed groups. In such groups, the rigid gendered division of labour mean that women would sometimes bear a

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disproportionate burden of the tasks which fall in the female domain such as weeding and transplanting. This was problematic for two reasons. Firstly, these tasks are often more labour intensive, when compared to what were considered ‘male’ activities within the group such as negotiating for a rent of a tractor or purchasing seeds. Secondly, male members sometimes reported calling in their female relatives to contribute labour for tasks such as transplantation and harvesting. As these workers are not the core member of the group, the benefits for these female family members in terms of access to cash or empowerment is questionable, and raises larger questions about the devaluation of female labour.

6. The different models, and factors supporting higher level cooperation

6.1 Crop type and group composition It is worth noting that there are a number of mediating factors which shaped the likelihoods of groups successfully pooling labour under model 1 and 2 with high level cooperation, or pursuing medium levels of cooperation under models 3 or 4. The first related to crop type. For grain staples such as paddy and wheat, farmers in Madhubani and Saptari felt that the management of labour was relatively more straightforward, as everyone is required for a few intense days during transplanting, weeding and harvesting. This contrasted with vegetable production which required a less intense but more frequent mobilisation of labour every few days for weeding, irrigating, application of pesticides, and harvesting – with the latter often being spread over several weeks as the vegetables mature. This was inevitably more difficult to coordinate. In Kanakpatti, two groups had for this reason split the collective, whereby vegetable fields would be cultivated individually under model 3, while fields for paddy and wheat would be farmed collectively under model 1. As noted by one female farmer in Koiladi.

“Vegetable farming requires a lot of work. We have to do weeding for potato, cauliflower, cabbage. We have to check whether the plants require water. On the other hand, wheat in winter require relatively less labor. We have to plough, apply fertilizer and give water after 25 days of sowing once and another time. Then it is not much task.”

This view was not however present in all groups. In North Bengal, the groups actually practiced vegetable cultivation collectively under model 2 and reverted to individual cultivation under model 4 for the monsoon. This was due to a cultural preference in the community to be responsible for one’s own paddy crop, rather than being due to the perceived benefits of working collectively to produce vegetables. Historically farmers in these communities have always cultivated their own land during the paddy season to ensure food security, and leasing out of land at this time of year is rare. Nevertheless, even though households have their own plots, transplantation remains a cooperative process, with most farmers exchanging labour through the hauli sytem.

The capacity to pool labour was also connected to the social dynamics and history of the group. While most groups were from the same ethnic or caste group, in Nepal and Bihar, the women only groups showed a greater ability to work together when compared to the mixed gender

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groups. Three out of four groups which abandoned labour pooling under model 1 (Koiladi 1 and 2 and Bhagwatipur 1 – see Table 6) were mixed groups, and these were the first to show signs of conflict over the timing of labour. On the whole, women only groups such as Mahuyahi 2, and Kankapatti 1 were successful in working together with relatively less conflict and demonstrated strong bonds of solidarity. The fact that Mahuyahi 2 had emerged organically on the initiative of the farmers themselves, with minimal support from the project partners, may also shed some light on its success.

6.2 Regional differences The most stark observation however, is the relative success of high level cooperation with labour pooling in North Bengal compared to sites in Bihar and Nepal. This is despite the fact that all but one of the North Bengal collectives were mixed gender. While there were some successes in the Bihar and Nepal, as described above, four groups in this region had started by pooling labour under model 1 at the start of the project, and another composed of smallholders had experimented with model 2, yet all had reverted to models 3 and 4 at the time of writing – the primary constraint being over timekeeping. By contrast, all groups in North Bengal were pooling labour under model 2 for all but the paddy crop – and although timekeeping constraints were raised in interviews, they had not escalated to the point whereby the group had to abandon labour pooling. In these sites, peer pressure alone encouraged farmers to come on time, or make up for lost time later, as also noted in Agarwal (2010). There was a mutual understanding that individual family circumstances occasionally makes it challenging for some members to work or come on time on a given day, and it was expected that within the whole agricultural cycle, these differences would be made up. Compensation would only be sought for repeat absences.

Table 9: Characteristic of each region and level of cooperation

Characteristic supporting collective action

North Bengal

Madhubani Saptari

High level cooperation (model 1 and 2) for all or part of the land

100% 28% 40%

Past exposure to collective labour pooling

yes no no

Average no of plots farmed by community members

1.66 3.05 2.65

Active caste system no yes yes % sample being part of indigenous or tribal community

36.4% 0% 82.2%

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There were several possible reasons why labour management issues could be resolved in North Bengal but not in Bihar and Nepal, and some of the regional differences which may play a role are illustrated in Table 9. Firstly, there is a long running history of collective action in the North Bengal villages which were not evident in the other regions – for example, cooperatives and self-help groups had been particularly active in both communities in the past.. Some members of the Dholaguri collectives had even been engaged in labour pooling before, albeit on a smaller scale, to collectively farm turmeric, as part of an earlier project supported by the government. There was an active farmers club in the community which had its own plot of land used for collective endeavors. In Uttar Chakoakheti there was a history of collective investment. For example, one neighborhood had recently jointly invested in furniture and utensils for social events.

The success of the collectives may also be associated with the historical legacy of the 1970s West Bengal land reforms which successfully mobilized the peasantry for their collective rights to levels not seen in Bihar or Nepal (see Banerjee et al., 2002), despite the history of peasant struggle across the region (Sugden, 2017). However, more research would be needed to understand the role of political history in mediating the ease at which farmers work together.

Secondly, the fact that there were not the same caste divisions at a community level when compared to Madhubani and Saptari may have been significant in building stronger community trust and cohesion (Dholaguri was almost entirely Rajbanshi7 and Uttar Chakoakheti was predominantly Adivasi (mostly Oraon). Added to this were the strong indigenous institutions within these communities which foster cooperation such as the hauli system of labour exchange. While such practices were observed in Madhubani, they were particularly widespread in North Bengal and had a powerful cultural as well as economic function. In some contexts groups had even brought in non-group members to support the collective during busy times through this system.

Another factor supporting labour pooling in North Bengal may have been due to the fact that farmers had fewer plots outside of the collective. As noted in Table 9, farmers have fewer plots overall in North Bengal when compared to Bihar and Nepal, and for many collective members, the plots provided to the group was their only land. There was therefore less of a conflict between one’s own land and the collective land. Even in Bihar, this was cited by farmers as one reason why the women’s group in Mahuyahi had been relatively successful in labour pooling compared to the women’s group in Bhagwatipur. In the former most farmers had only very small plots outside the collective, while in the latter, members had large areas of land on lease outside.

7. Learnings and further research

7.1 Managing labour and land The analysis of the collectives and the challenges they face point to a number of key learnings as well as areas for further research. The first challenge which is applicable to model 1 and 2, relates

7 Rajbanshi are an indigenous ethnic group from the North Bengal region, and although they are classified in West Bengal as a ‘Scheduled Caste’, they are not part of any pre-existing caste system, unlike in Nepal for example, where many indigenous groups were integrated into the state sanctioned caste system of the 19th century.

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to the pooling of labour and coordination of the work schedules of farmers. While this has been managed through informal mechanisms in North Bengal, some level of formal record keeping may help to reduce conflict in the case of regions such as Saptari and Madhubani where the capacity to work collectively is more limited. This could be done for example, by reviewing the aggregate contributions at the end of the season to ensure that those who put in more labour overall were provided some financial compensation (e.g a greater share of the harvest). This would allow some flexibility whereby if one farmer was unable to come on time due to competing commitments, they could compensate the group.

Some groups have a clear constitution, and have already started time sheets, which also include a clear division of responsibilities. If someone is unable to labour on a particular day, they have the option of paying for a labourer to carry out the work for them or sending another family member. More research is necessary to identify whether such a system is possible, or indeed desirable, particularly given the likely high transaction costs and the problem of enforcement.

A second field for further research would be whether moving to larger collectively cultivated farms would reduce the amount of conflict with one’s own farm. In areas with high tenancy, a larger collective may provide members more of their subsistence needs, and limit the need for farmers to take on additional private tenancies. It has already been demonstrated how in sites where farmers have fewer plots outside the collective (Mahuyahi in Madhubani and both sites in North Bengal), there is reduced conflict over labour. While availability of land remains a challenge, future collective models could emerge in the wake of a large scale land reform programme, in which case there could be a case to set up much larger farms.

A third learning relates to the choice of crops for pooling of labour. It is clear that farmers feel certain crops are more amenable to collective cultivation than others, resulting in mixed models emerging which combine models 1 & 2 and 3 & 4 respectively. The choices appear to be rooted in cultural norms as well as the labour requirements for different cropping systems. It is important to be sensitive to these local differences, and maintain flexibility, while also ensuring farmers are fully aware of the potential benefits of collective mobilization of labour.

7.2 Building the institutions for sustainable collective formation

The collectives experiments also raised a number of broader questions relating to how to strengthen the groups institutionally to minimize conflict, encourage collective action for the benefit of all members, and most importantly to ensure their long term ability to sustain themselves. There is a clear need for an institutional spine to tie the multiple groups together. At present groups retain some dependence upon the respective NGO and government partner in each site for technical support, guidance in group and financial management, although some groups are more independent. Furthermore, whilst farmers bargaining power with landlords and other stakeholders have improved, the project partners in particular have often played a mediating role, particularly in the case of any disputes which have arisen over rent or group contributions. Dependence on these third party stakeholders will not be sustainable in the long term, unless farmer collectives become a core component of government agricultural

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development strategy. A federation of farmer collectives or a similar institutional base would it is anticipated take on the role of the project partners in the long term - facilitating in dispute resolution, development and upholding of rules and bet practices for the groups, and technical support (or putting farmers in touch with relevant authorities). The advantages of a larger institutional entity is displayed in Dholaguri of North Bengal, where a farmer club which predates the project has provided a loose institutional base for the collectives in that village – the club already has developed strong bonds of trust between farmers, and have supported the collectives, particularly in technical support. Similarly, the agreement between the women’s group in Mahuyahi to team up with the youth group to (successfully) negotiate a reduced rent, outlines the benefits of more than one group working together as an even larger entity.

7.3 Gender equity A final learning and new research area relates to improving gender equity within the collectives. A challenge as noted above is that women’s contributions in mixed groups may be unequal when compared to men – this may occur through male members sending their wives as ‘substitutes’ and then retaining the output themselves, or an unequal distribution of labour between men and women.

Regarding to the problem of substitution in mixed groups, one option which requires further research is the possibility of restricting membership to individuals, whereby a household was not permitted to substitute their labour for others. If a family member (women or man) replaces them on a given day, they would also receive a share of the output at the end of the year proportionate to the number of days they had contributed.

With regards to unequal contributions, careful accounting of labour contributions could reduce the risk of women taking on an unequal burden, and men who did not contribute equal labour time could compensate the group financially or through a reduced share of the output. Again however, more research is required given the difficulties of enforcement, as well as the cultural devaluation of ‘female’ tasks such as paddy transplantation when compared to ‘male’ tasks such as land preparation. In the long term, organizations supporting collective formation will need to prioritize training of women in ‘technical’ tasks within the male domain such as pump operation. This will help to undermine rigid divisions of labour, but will also be advantageous in the case of all women groups, as they will no longer be dependent upon men from outside the group for ‘male’ tasks.

8. Conclusions This report has proposed farmer collectives as a significant opportunity for the marginal and tenant farmers of the Eastern Gangetic Plains at a time of agrarian stress. The collectives have also supported farmers to achieve economies of scale by operating a large contiguous plot, and have increased their bargaining power with a range of external stakeholders, particularly landlords. Importantly, the collectives have been shown to successfully support a more efficient use of labour, particularly under model 1 and 2 which involve the pooling of labour – although it is clear that these models work better in some locales more than others, with a particularly stark difference between largely tribal North Bengal, and the caste heartland of the Gangetic Plains in

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Nepal and Bihar. For the latter model, there are still challenges associated primarily with time keeping and coordinating work schedules of members. The report has suggested some important learnings, which will help to address these challenges, particularly by improving labour management and building a stronger institutional base for the collectives to function and ensure their longer term sustainability. There are also challenges in seeing through the desired transformation in gender relations. There is a risk that inequalities in the labour burden between women and men in conventional agrarian systems are reproduced through the collectives. Nevertheless, better accounting systems and rules, combined with training to facilitate female engagement in male domains, may help address these concerns, although further research is needed in this field.

One unusual paradox displayed in this report is that the models of collective leasing of land itself depend on the support of the same landlord-tenant relations which it seeks to undermine. The model therefore can only flourish following a meaningful redistribution of land. Nevertheless, in the long term, the group solidarity and mobilisation through group lease collectives could allow tenants to more easily claim their legal rights to land should a meaningful programme of land reform be implemented in the future. At the same time, it could pave the way for mobilisation at a national and regional level via larger political movements for both land reforms itself, as well as more equitable trade regimes and policies for farmers. This paper has not intended to present an idealised framework for collective leasing. Instead, it has presented an agenda for research into an often overlooked or dismissed system of production. Considerable work is still to be done to test, tailor and develop multiple models of collective production suitable to the diverse and complex social formation of the Eastern Gangetic Plains, and to meet the needs of South Asia’s most vulnerable farmers, and it is hoped that the learnings and research avenues identified in this paper will further this agenda.

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