Indian dairy ABSYSs facing local and global challenges

The general objective of the project is to understand the undergoing transformation of Indian dairy systems and to assess to which extent it represents a sustainable development model, able to address jointly food security, poverty reduction and environmental issues.
The transformation of Indian dairy farming involves several processes, socio-economical and agro-ecological in nature and operating at different scales. The project aims to create in-depth knowledge on these processes and to articulate them for providing a relevant global picture.

More specifically, the project intends to come up with answers to the following questions:
(i) Who are the Indian dairy farmers? What are their livestock practices? How do they feed their animals? What are their relations with other farms and non-farm employment? How does milk contribute to household food security? Which share of the milk is marketed and through which value chains? How do the local land tenures and agrarian relations, as well as the biophysical and technical environment, structure the diversity of dairy systems within the country?
(ii) What are the extent and consequences of the decline in multifunctional livestock for the ecosystems? How do the intensification of livestock practices and the concentration of dairy farms in some areas affect their soil and water resources? At a more global level, what are the impacts of the dairy farming development in terms of fossil resources consumption and greenhouse gas emissions?
(iii) What conditions are required for the rural poor to really benefit from the dairy market opportunities? Are private investments in the dairy sector and the emergence of Producers’ companies favourable to smallholders or does it lead to their exclusion? What are the private, collective and public levers of action to facilitate their access to extending and modernising markets?
(iv) How does dairy farming fit into the more global biophysical and economic development path of the Indian subcontinent? To which extent is it shaped by political choices regulating other issues such as food security in crop products, employment or trade? What is its sustainability in this context? Is the recycling based and pro-poor development meant to be only transitory?

The project also has methodological purposes. The project combines different analytical frameworks. Improving these frameworks by applying them jointly to the Indian case and by placing livestock activities at the core of the analysis is part of the objectives of the project. Moreover, questions arise at the articulation of these frameworks: does the agrarian system analysis help in addressing more effectively the place of livestock farming in an ecosystem? Similarly, how does the analysis of market functioning in terms of competition regime and of the national economy in terms of socio-industrial metabolism contribute to a better understanding of agrarian systems at regional and national scales?