Perils of Productivity: Making ‘Good Farmers’ in Malwa, India

The idea of a ‘good farmer’ who adheres to scientific methods of crop production and produces high yields was commonly articulated by scientists and some farmers in Malwa, central India, while evaluating soybean farming. However, through detailed ethnographic description of the everyday practices of soybean farmers in Malwa, this paper argues that there is no direct link between scientific methods and high productivity, defined as yield per unit of land, because the outcome is dependent on variables that cannot be controlled by farmers. Rather, the metaphor of a ‘good farmer’ was selectively used by upper‐caste farmers to reinforce their power and authority in the face of declining state support to emphasize their continued importance to agriculture and the state. When upper‐caste farmers were less productive, they placed the blame on the environment, but when lower‐caste farmers produced less, the blame was placed on their (lack of) capability to understand scientific techniques that were expected to increase productivity. This paper suggests that instead of using the productivity discourse to evaluate farming, a different valuation reveals the positive contribution of soybean as a poor farmer's crop due to its agronomic characteristics and market environment.