Land, Labor, and Rural Development: Analyzing Participation in India's Village Dairy Cooperatives

Abstract

Livestock-based livelihoods are currently being promoted by international development agencies as part of global efforts to combat poverty. India's dairy development program, organized around village cooperatives, has become an important model for such efforts. This article aims to identify household characteristics that influence membership in India's rural dairy cooperatives by comparing two villages representing different degrees of success. Utilizing logistic regression methods, data collected through a comprehensive survey of all households in the two villages are analyzed to examine (1) how variables describing animal ownership, agricultural attributes, and household labor availability contribute to explaining membership in the dairy cooperative; and (2) whether factors influencing membership differ across the two villages. Our results indicate that although agricultural property ownership influences cooperative membership in both villages, the kind of dairy animal used and labor utilized for dairying work also have a significant and context-specific effect on household participation.

Actualmente las agencias de desarrollo internacional están promoviendo el sustento basado en la ganadería como parte de los esfuerzos globales para combatir la pobreza. El programa de desarrollo lácteo de India, organizado alrededor de cooperativas comunales, se ha convertido en un importante modelo de tales esfuerzos. Este artículo tiene como objetivo identificar las características familiares que influyen en la afiliación a las cooperativas rurales lácteas de India comparando dos comunidades que representan diferentes grados de éxito. Los datos recopilados mediante encuestas exhaustivas de todas las familias de las dos comunidades se analizaron mediante métodos de regresión logística para examinar (1) cómo las variables que describen la propiedad de animales, los atributos agrícolas y la disponibilidad de mano de obra en la familia contribuyen a explicar la afiliación a las cooperativas lácteas; y (2) si los factores que influencian la afiliación difieren entre las dos comunidades. Nuestros resultados indican que aunque la posesión de propiedades agrícolas influye en la afiliación a las cooperativas en ambas comunidades, la clase de ganado usado y la labor utilizada para el trabajo lechero también tienen un efecto significativo y específico del contexto en la participación de la familia.

Key Words:

• agriculture
• cooperatives
• dairying
• land
• rural development

关键词:

• 农业
• 合作社
• 乳品事业
• 土地
• 农村发展

Palabras claves:

• agricultura
• cooperativas
• trabajo lechero
• tierra
• desarrollo rural

Acknowledgments

PRATYUSHA BASU is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Geography, University of South Florida, Tampa, FL 33620. E-mail: [email protected]. Her research interests include rural development, agriculture, environmental movements, and gender issues.

JAYAJIT CHAKRABORTY is an Associate Professor in the Department of Geography, University of South Florida, Tampa, FL 33620. E-mail: [email protected]. His research interests include vulnerability to hazards, environmental justice, environmental health, information technology and society, and quantitative methods for geographic research.

Notes

* p < 0.10.

** p < 0.05.

*** p < 0.01.

* p < 0.10.

** p < 0.05.

*** p < 0.01.

*Field work for this research was supported by the International Dissertation Field Research Fellowship Program of the Social Science Research Council (with funds from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation) and by a Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement Award from the National Science Foundation (BCS-0000280). The authors wish to thank Hetal Patel and Sandip Patel from Gujarat, India, and Urmila Patidar from Madhya Pradesh, India, for their assistance with the fieldwork.

¹The names Mahdol and Saundara are pseudonyms for the actual village names. The actual names of these villages are not reported in this article because information regarding ownership of land and other agricultural assets was obtained on the assurance that confidentiality would be maintained in the dissemination of research results.