The Capital–Labour–State Dynamics of Herbicide Adoption in Rainfed India

ABSTRACT This paper engages debates around the capital–labour–state dynamics of agrarian transitions to address the oft‐studied but still little‐understood question of why farmers adopt herbicides when they do. Over the last several years, smallholder farmers in India have begun using the herbicide bispyribac sodium at breakneck speeds, particularly in semi‐subsistence, marginalized tracts such as the eastern districts of Madhya Pradesh (MP), India. First, we utilize investor analysis and corporate reporting to explain how bispyribac sodium became a ‘blockbuster’ product through not just standard firm strategies such as in‐country licencing and multi‐tiered distribution but also corporate social responsibility programmes that fill a void left by an absent state. Second, we draw on qualitative data from two districts in eastern MP to argue that herbicide adoption goes beyond cultural and economic considerations and is intimately entwined in heated class struggles. We find that increased tensions between the women who primarily labour and the smallholders that employ them have made herbicide adoption a viable strategy to bypass a renegotiation of farmer–labour relations. Our conclusions draw out the implications of herbicides in eastern India in terms of capitalist transitions, arguing that perceptive firm strategies lead to accumulation for the urban capitalist and work to further segment the rural classes.