Neoliberalism, also neo-liberalism, is both a political philosophy and a term used to signify the late-20th-century political reappearance of 19th-century ideas associated with free-market capitalism. The term has multiple, competing definitions, and is often used pejoratively. In scholarly use, the term is frequently undefined or used to characterize a vast variety of phenomena, but is primarily used to describe the transformation of society due to market-based reforms.
Rural sociology is a field of sociology traditionally associated with the study of social structure and conflict in rural areas. It is an active academic field in much of the world, originating in the United States in the 1910s with close ties to the national Department of Agriculture and land-grant university colleges of agriculture.
Subsistence agriculture occurs when farmers grow crops to meet the needs of themselves and their families on smallholdings. Subsistence agriculturalists target farm output for survival and for mostly local requirements. Planting decisions occur principally with an eye toward what the family will need during the coming year, and only secondarily toward market prices. Tony Waters, a professor of sociology, defines "subsistence peasants" as "people who grow what they eat, build their own houses, and live without regularly making purchases in the marketplace".
La Vía Campesina is an international farmers organization founded in 1993 in Mons, Belgium, formed by 182 organisations in 81 countries, and describing itself as "an international movement which coordinates peasant organizations of small and middle-scale producers, agricultural workers, rural women, and indigenous communities from Asia, Africa, America, and Europe".
All India Kisan Sabha, is the peasant or farmers' wing of the Communist Party of India, an important peasant movement formed by Sahajanand Saraswati in 1936.
Metabolic rift is a theory of ecological crisis tendencies under the capitalist mode of production that sociologist John Bellamy Foster ascribes to Karl Marx. Quoting Marx, Foster defines this as the "irreparable rift in the interdependent process of social metabolism". Foster argues that Marx theorized a rupture in the metabolic interaction between humanity and the rest of nature emanating from capitalist agricultural production and the growing division between town and country.
Farmers' suicides in India refers to the event of farmers dying by suicide in India since the 1970s, due to their inability to repay loans mostly taken from private landlords and banks. India being an agrarian country with around 70% of its rural population depending directly or indirectly upon agriculture, the sector had a 15% share in the economy of India in 2023, and according to NSSO, around 45.5% of country's labor force was associated with agriculture in 2022. Activists and scholars have offered several conflicting reasons for farmer suicides, such as anti-farmer laws, high debt burdens, poor government policies, corruption in subsidies, crop failure, mental health, personal issues and family problems.
The Green Revolution was a period that began in the 1960's during which agriculture in India was converted into a modern industrial system by the adoption of technology, such as the use of high yielding variety (HYV) seeds, mechanized farm tools, irrigation facilities, pesticides, and fertilizers. Mainly led by agricultural scientist M. S. Swaminathan in India, this period was part of the larger Green Revolution endeavor initiated by Norman Borlaug, which leveraged agricultural research and technology to increase agricultural productivity in the developing world. Varieties or strains of crops can be selected by breeding for various useful characteristics such as disease resistance, response to fertilizers, product quality and high yields.
The economic liberalisation in India refers to the series of policy changes aimed at opening up the country's economy to the world, with the objective of making it more market-oriented and consumption-driven. The goal was to expand the role of private and foreign investment, which was seen as a means of achieving economic growth and development. Although some attempts at liberalisation were made in 1966 and the early 1980s, a more thorough liberalisation was initiated in 1991.
The latter part of the 19th century was a period of agrarian unrest in the Midwestern United States. From 1865 to 1896, farmer protests led to the formation of organized movements including the Grange, the Populist Party, the Greenbacks, and other alliances. Farmers cited the reasons for their unhappiness as declining prices, decreasing purchasing power, and monopolistic practices of: 1) moneylenders, 2) railroad corporations, and 3) other middlemen. Recent research has led scholars to question the validity of these explanations. Currently there is no scholarly consensus on the causes of agrarian discontent.
The Journal of Agrarian Change is a peer-reviewed academic journal established in 2001 covering agrarian political economy. The journal publishes historical and contemporary studies of the social relations and dynamics of production, power relations in agrarian formations and ownership structures and their processes of change.
The National Commission on Farmers (NCF) is an Indian commission constituted on 18 November 2004 under the chairmanship of Professor M.S. Swaminathan to address the nationwide calamity of farmers suicides in India. The Terms of Reference reflected the priorities listed in the Common Minimum Programme. The NCF submitted four reports in December 2004, August 2005, December 2005 and April 2006 respectively. The fifth and final report was submitted on 4 October 2006. The reports contain suggestions to achieve the goal of "faster and more inclusive growth" as envisaged in the Approach to 11th Five Year Plan and are collectively termed the M.S. Swaminathan report for farmers
Agrarian socialism is a political ideology that promotes social ownership of agrarian and agricultural production as opposed to private ownership. Agrarian socialism involves equally distributing agricultural land among collectivized peasant villages. Many agrarian socialist movements have tended to be rural, locally focused, and traditional. Governments and political parties seeking agrarian socialist policies have existed throughout the world, in regions including Europe, Asia, North America, Latin America, and Africa.
Ramkrishna Mukherjee was a scientist at the Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata, President of the Indian Sociological Society (1973–75) and recipient of the Indian Sociological Society's Lifetime Achievement Award in 2005.
The Andhra Pradesh Vyavsaya Vruthidarula Union (APVVU) is a state level trade union federation in the state of Andhra Pradesh in India. The APVVU comprises 448 mandal (block) level trade unions of agricultural workers, marginal farmers, fisher folk, indigenous people, shepherds and rural artisans. The APVVU is part of the National Alliance of People's Movements and the Progressive International.
In rural areas, the business operates towards different industries, which are agriculture, forest, and handloom industries. The people lived in different areas of rural India master in unique skills. Such as the rural people living in Kerala, they have professional skill in carving wood, the other rural people proficient in weaving carpet live in Kashmir, there are various skills from place to place is because of the factors of resources and traditions. Besides, in India, the agricultural is vital for the economy because it accounts for 44.5% of GDP from 1970 to 1971 and offers 68% of rural employment. However, the agriculture sector shrunk to 16.1% of GDP in 2009 while the proportion of non-agricultural industry achieved 86% of the GDP.
Bharatiya Kisan Union (BKU) is a farmer's representative organisation in India. It was founded by Chaudhary Charan Singh from the Punjab Khetibari Union which became its Punjab branch. The union is affiliated to the All India Kisan Sangharsh Coordination Committee and Via Campesina. The national headquarters of the union is located in Sisauli, Muzaffarnagar, Uttar Pradesh.
Dr. Vijoo Krishnan is an Indian peasant leader, writer on Agrarian Issues and General Secretary of the All India Kisan Sabha. He is a central committee member of Communist Party of India (Marxist). He is also part of the six-member central secretariat of CPI(M). He is one of the key organiser of Bhoomi Adhikar Andolan.
P. Krishna Prasad is the finance secretary of All India Kisan Sabha and the former CPI(M) MLA from Sulthan Bathery. He is also the chairman of Brahmagiri Development Society, a worker – peasant cooperative in Kerala.
Geoffrey Alan Lawrence is an Australian sociologist, academic and researcher. He is Emeritus Professor of Sociology at the University of Queensland.
