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Type of Document Dissertation Author Ambinakudige, Shrinidhi Shivaram Author's Email Address ssa2645@garnet.acns.fsu.edu, Shrinidhia@gmail.com URN etd-04102006-124926 Title Differential Impacts of Commodification of Agriculture on People's Livelihoods and the Environment in the Western Ghats of India: An Extended Environmental Entitlement Analysis Degree Doctor of Philosophy Department Geography, Department of Advisory Committee
Advisor Name Title Daniel James Klooster Committee Chair Bruce Stiftel Committee Member Janet Kodras Committee Member Xiaojung Yang Committee Member Keywords
- Environmental Entitlement
- Political Ecology
- Remote Sensing
- Coffee
- India
- Tribal
- Western Ghats
- GIS
- Biodiversity
- Kodagu
Date of Defense 2006-04-06 Availability unrestricted Abstract This study analyzed the differential impacts of commodification of agriculture on people’s livelihoods and the environment in the Western Ghats of India. This study was conducted in Kodagu region of Western Ghats: a major coffee growing area in India. In this study, an extended environmental entitlement framework was developed and used to understand the institutional influence in livelihood outcomes of the social actors and the environmental transformations of the region. Tribal people and the coffee growers are the two socially differentiated actors considered in this study. This political ecology study used multiple methods including ethnography, vegetation study and remote sensing and GIS methods. The study found that peasants and tribal people became more vulnerable to market volatility after the global and national coffee institutional measures to regulate the market were removed. Furthermore, the creation of protected area reduced tribal people’s access to forest products and increased their dependence on coffee labor market. This makes their livelihoods especially vulnerable to global coffee price fluctuations.
Commodification of agriculture also changed the land use and land cover patterns in Kodagu. While introduction of coffee led to conversion of large tracts of forests, price fluctuations after the introduction of open market for coffee forced the conversion of land under subsistence agriculture to commercial agriculture. Introduction of coffee entitlement mapping also resulted in tree density and species diversity change. Exotic tree species are becoming more common in coffee plots because there were fewer restrictions on cutting and marketing of these species compared to native tree species.
The Extended Environmental Entitlement Framework helps to analyze the complex relation between livelihoods and environmental changes without prioritizing either environmental or social factors in analysis. The framework also incorporates the spatial and temporal dynamic influence of institutions that act as “stimulants” or “barriers” in the process of entitlement mapping. The framework also helps to integrate social and environmental data collected from different methods. The dynamic nature of the framework allows political ecologists to adapt it to study issues relating to the livelihood dimensions of global environmental changes.
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