The seed and the well: navigating agrarian risk in the Anthropocene

This chapter examines the entanglements of climatic and agrarian risk against the backdrop of a broader crisis of Indian agriculture. Building on ethnographic research in the Malwa region of central India, the chaper focuses on two major drivers of agrarian change since the 1980s: the introduction of soybean as a primary monsoon crop and the spread of irrigation through private borewells. Specifically, it shows how these capitalist agrarian transformations intersect with climatic change to produce and enhance risk for smallholder farmers. Drawing on the rich traditions of critical agrarian studies and political ecology, the chapter argues that these entwinements reveal that climate change unfolds within and is articulated through specific socio-spatial and historical contexts. Moreover, it demonstrates that the contours of the agrarian present might be discerned in often mundane and minute shifts in everyday practices and processes of cultivation.