Stakeholders’ Perspectives on Market-based Instruments and Trade Policies for Environmental Goods: Evidence from Malaysia

This article investigates policy constraints for the environmental goods sector in Malaysia based on the dimensions of market-based (including regulatory) instruments and trade policies. In-depth structured interviews with the government and key industry players are conducted, and six overarching themes constraining the efficacy of the instruments and policies were identified. The findings suggest that incentives and loans for this sector are skewed to manufacturers and low-risk projects, respectively. The major policy gaps in this sector are mostly related to procedural issues, namely non-transparent information, non-uniformity of requirements and complex documentation for certification, licensing and permits.

Separating Wheat from the Chaff: Farm Acts, Farmers’ Protest and Outcomes

The farmers’ protest at the outskirts of Delhi has completed one year and still continuing. It was triggered after the Government of India enacted three farm Acts in September 2020 that strive to initiate sweeping reforms in agricultural produce selling, procurement, and storage and public distribution of essential commodities. In this context, an attempt has been made in this article to examine the claim of both the government and the farmers’ unions leading the protest movement. The contribution of this study is manifold: in terms of tracing the evolution of the current farmers’ protest movement, farmer unions’ negotiations with the government, loss of human lives, and outcomes. It is found that farm Acts are structurally flawed and risk the food security of the country besides preparing ground for eviction of smallholders from agriculture altogether. The analysis of the field survey based on characteristics of 460 deceased farmers during the participation in the protest reveals that they belonged to the lowest rung of the farmers. The support to the family members left behind has come from various quarters but is inadequate. The article argues that the state autonomy to take policy decisions regarding farm Acts should be protected. The union government should develop institutional mechanism to take along all stakeholders for resolving the international and inter-state issues concerning agriculture sector.

Interrogating the MSP Regime, Farm Laws and Agrarian Future in India

The three new farm laws promulgated by the Government of India in 2020 as agricultural marketing reforms, with the claim that they were aimed at expanding farmers’ marketing choices and increasing their incomes, have triggered massive protests by farmers. These protests have crystallized around two key demands: first, repeal the laws and second, make the minimum support price (MSP) for procuring farmers’ produce a legal right. Given that discussions between the government and farmers’ organizations continue to be at an impasse, it is critical to understand the arguments over the laws and the MSP, and the implications of these arguments for the agrarian future of India.

Contesting Agricultural Markets in South Asia: Farmer Movements, Co-operatives and Alternative Visions

Recent laws for privatizing agricultural produce markets in India are just one prominent example of long-running efforts to liberalize agriculture across South Asia. These legacies of state withdrawal from agriculture and the growing role of private intermediaries in both input and output markets have precipitated simultaneous crises of reproduction and accumulation in the countryside. However, such trajectories of liberalization are both context-specific and politically contested. Drawing from two cases—the Pakistan Kissan Ittehad’s efforts to build a broad political coalition among differentiated agrarian producers to contest the place of farmers in agricultural markets and the Northern Sri Lanka co-operative movement’s autonomous initiatives for post-war rural reconstruction—this article argues that rural movements are providing new and alternative visions for how farmers can engage with liberalizing agricultural markets on more equitable terms.

Globalization of Agriculture and Atomization of Farming: Small Farms Crisis in Asia

Agriculture in Asia is being pushed into a new policy regime that uncritically promotes free trade and laissez faire policies. The World Trade Organization agreement on agriculture, regional preferential trading arrangements (PTAs) and neoliberal policies pursued by the individual nations are the central features of the new regime. The new regime is built disregarding the existing knowledge on agricultural commodities that they are prone to market failures, which are unlikely to be corrected if left unregulated. In this article, we portray the new regime in terms of two defining processes that are at work, viz. globalization of agriculture and atomization of farming. Globalization happens on account of integration of the agricultural markets at provincial, national and global levels. Atomization of farming occurs due to fragmentation of holdings on the one hand and weakening of ‘collective action’ on the other. In the farming end of the value chains, millions of small farms, who lack any market power whatsoever, compete among themselves. The post-harvesting nodes have fewer and larger firms. As we have argued at length, the large firms inhabiting the postharvest nodes of the commodity chains are capable of extracting profit out of volatilities in the market. The non-farm nodes are characterized by economies of scale and possible accumulation of market power. Such profiteering will be at the expense of the atomized farms as well as the final consumers of the commodities. The policy has become suddenly very active in abetting competition upstream and limiting it downstream. The regime legitimizes entry barriers downstream and intervenes directly to promote entry, augment supply/competition upstream. The policymakers do not want to intervene in the market to save producers from commodity problems; instead favour players profiteering out of such possible instances of market failure.

Pitfalls of External Institutional Facilitation of Farmer Organizations: Insights from Farmer Companies in Sri Lanka

Farmer companies (FCs) were a form of farmer-owned firms established in Sri Lanka during the mid-1990s. These have been facilitated by state institutions. Maximization of returns through commercial agriculture has been the main objective of FCs. However, no FCs were operating by the year 2010. This article explains that the institutional facilitation is a strong ingredient in the establishment of FCs in Sri Lanka. This article explainfs how the institutional and governance arrangements of FCs were influenced by the facilitating institutions during the institutional facilitation. It also suggests that institutional facilitation affected the performance of FCs. Six failed FCs were studied. Strategic facilitation was responsible for the performance and sustainability of FCs while operative facilitation provided the basis for direction and operations. Results indicate that poor performance and failure of FCs were due to institutional facilitation that has introduced weak institutional and governance arrangements. There was non-shareholder influence on the Boards of Directors; geographically restricted shareholding; democratic voting rights; and shareholder rights not linked to equity or patronage. Governance problems included voting by the raise of hand; managers not reporting to the Boards directly; shareholders did not elect all the directors. Institutional facilitation of FCs in Sri Lanka has been done by the state facilitating institutions. They have been excessively authoritative on their respective FCs. Therefore, changing the label from cooperatives to companies would not result in better performance. Some recommendations are that facilitating institutions empower FCs through capacity-building; participatory approach in facilitation; remove the geographical restriction in shareholding; install variable shareholding; build capacity of managerial staff; use secret ballots at voting, and practice proportional voting. Understanding the role of facilitating institutions and the dynamics of facilitation would be useful to promote farmer collectives in smallholder farmer dominant developing countries.

Advancing Female Corporate Leadership: A Comparative Analysis of Female Versus Male Leadership Behaviour in India

This article investigates whether women managers possess any specific leadership attributes which will enable them to be promoted to leadership positions on merit grounds. It also examines whether women encounter barriers, which impede their progress to the top. Data for our study were collected from a sample of 372 managers in leadership positions across India, half of whom were women and the other half were men. The survey was done through the administration of a 21-item questionnaire developed by the authors. Through the application of decision tree analysis, logistic regression analysis and discriminant analysis, we arrived at findings that have reasonable predictive accuracy. Our results suggest that women managers in leadership positions are significantly more likely to get reticent team members to participate at meetings than their male counterparts. This is our principal finding. This is significant, given that contemporary leadership emphasizes inclusivity and distributed leadership. This is because, as our data shows, while women managers are as good as men, they additionally possess an attribute which makes them better suited than men as leaders. Another finding is that many women leaders differ from men in that they often struggle with work–life balance challenges. The suggestion is that companies could offer more options to women to achieve work–life balance. The third finding is that women leaders are perceived as more empathetic than men. The implication is that all of these constitute business arguments favouring organizational support for competent women managers advancing to leadership positions. Data are from India, focussing on Indian managerial leadership.

Talent Development of Generation Y: Evidence from Sri Lanka

This study aims to understand the nature of Generation Y (Gen Y) and identify their understandings of talent development practices at the workplace. This research used open-ended interviews directed to 15 participants belonging to Gen Y in an automobile company in Sri Lanka. Job-hopping is an identifiable factor among the generation, as they continuously look for a change in their work and personal routines. The ‘Talk and chalk’ model is getting unpopular, whereas different approaches carrying new concepts have created a good impression among the Gen Y employees. Treasure hunts, talent shows, racing events, kaizen events, grooming and flexibility, were identified as non-traditional attractive talent development programmes. This research provided practical implications for employers to recognize how to Y-size their organizations by incorporating talent development as a critical strategy for retaining Gen Y. The present study has given attention to expanding the geographical scope of the literature on Gen Y.

Role of Contract Farming in Crop Diversification and Employment Generation: Empirical Evidence from Indian Punjab

Linking small farmers with modern agri-business firms through contract farming is viewed as one of the several ways to achieve crop diversification and enhance farmers’ income, besides bringing spill-over effects of such interventions for other local stakeholders like farm workers. This article examines the role of contract farming in crop diversification and employment generation in the context of Indian Punjab. Based on a sample of 50 contract farmers and 50 non-contract farmers for three firms each, the study shows that contract farming brings crop diversification and generates farm labour employment, particularly for women, due to the high value and labour-intensive nature of crops being grown under such arrangements. But, there exists a gender gap in wages and gendering of tasks, which demand policy and corporate attention besides regulatory oversight to achieve more equitable and pro-poor impact of contract farming.