India’s agricultural sector is in turmoil. In the early years of independent india, to achieve self-sufficiency in food, several policies were enacted to reform the sector. Many of those early policies are now coming home to roost.

How did we get here? How did we manage to make great strides in agriculture and food security, and yet ended up failing our farmers? Are we too focussed on the business of agriculture and not on the farmers? Trying to impose one set of central regulations on variegated agricultural markets across the country is a complex and thankless task. Even the most well-intentioned reforms are bound to offend some segments of the multifarious stakeholders who eye a slice of this large pie.

Our speaker brings an interdisciplinary perspective – cutting across sociology, anthropology, economics, and politics – on agricultural markets and reforms. She will address the why and the how of where we are on agriculture policy, farm laws, and farmer protests. We will delve into the situation of agriculture and farmers, the recent laws and, more importantly, how does the agricultural sector dig itself out of the current impasse.