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AP METHODS Field
work for the study was conducted in three districts, with one
district each from the three regions of AP – Telangana, Rayalseema
and Coastal Andhra. these three regions represent divergent
historical, political and agroecological conditions and therefore
distinct patterns of livelihood evolution and diversification .
After considerable discussion with key informants a decision was
taken to locate the fieldwork within Medak, Chittoor and Krishna.
Within each district, two contrasting villages were selected
for detailed household level study.
The selection of villages was guided by a number of different
criteria including proximity to urban areas, roads and markets;
social and economic indicators of development; presence of
factionalism and extremists; coverage by pro-poor programmes;
whether studied in the past (as this would facilitate longitudinal
analysis) as well as the presence of civil society organisations. . Features of the region and
district selection process
Telangana is a semi-dry region. It was under the rule of the Nizam and is comparatively backward in terms of infrastructure development, educational facilities and the advancement of women. This region is now home to some of the poorest people in AP, who migrate out for several months in a year to make a living. The capital city of Hyderabad liess within Telangana, and provides urban employment to many rural migrants. Medak has a large industrial belt in the south around Hyderabad, which some analysts attribute to it once being Indira Gandhi’s constituency. It is consequently one of the most polluted spots in the world. Coastal
Andhra includes a number of districts that have developed faster
than other parts of AP and includes the coastal delta areas that are
very similar to “green revolution” parts of Punjab, Western UP,
Gujarat and Maharashtra. In
these canal irrigated lands, agriculture is based on intensively
farmed high yielding paddy and sugarcane and the associated
characteristics of the labour such as heavy inflows of seasonal
migrant labour from surrounding poor areas.
Many of these farmers have been typecast as capitalist
farmers, who have invested their surplus into diversifying out of
agriculture. Development
indicators show much improvement in female literacy, income levels,
infrastructure development, the sex ratio and the fall in infant
mortality. Rayalseema
on the other hand has some of the harshest environmental conditions
in the state and even in the whole of India. Once a prosperous
industrial and farming centre, this region is now characterised by
drought. The summer of
2001 brought the fifth consecutive year of drought in some parts,
with ancient tanks and wells running dry. Two villages were selected from each district one “near” and the other “remote”. the names of the study villages, mandals and districts are shown below:
Three
quantitative surveys were conducted.
The first was a census – where each and every household was
covered. The
questionnaire was pretested, revised and translated before printing
in bulk.The questionnaire was designed to
collect basic information on demographics, occupation structure,
income, assets and access to propoor programmes. Next,
two seasonal surveys were conducted one for Kharif, the main growing
season and another for Rabi. The
size of the sample was 40-80 households depending on the size and
variability of the population.
The
samples were selected by stratifying the population based on the
census data. The stratification was done on the basis of landholding
and caste. Proportionately more households were selected from the
category of the landless poor to ensure that diversity within poor
groups was captured. The sample was studied first for the preceding kharif season and covered the cropping pattern, farm budgets, crop area, marketing, and prices. The same sample was surveyed in rabi. A much smaller number of households, roughly 15 per village were chosen for detailed life histories to understand life shaping events and trajectories. |
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- John Farrington and Priya Deshingkar
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- Priya Deshingkar & John Farrington
6.11.03 |
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