Liberalization of coffee marketing and rural change in Coorg (South India)
Libéralisation du marché du café et changement rural dans le Coorg (Inde du sud)
Résumé
The economic liberalization which started at the beginning of the 90's in India is a major factor of change. In such a poor country, it is a new challenge for a large part of the population. Indeed, after more than 50 years of control on the economy, the government decided in 1991 to follow I.M.F. recommendations. This was supposed to lead to tremendous changes in the country, in towns as well as in rural areas. In this context of change, this paper analyses the local impact of the liberalization of coffee marketing in Coorg, a highly rural district in south-west Karnataka. In 1992, the Indian government decided to free coffee prices and there by opening new perspectives for coffee producers. Entire regions are concerned by this liberalization, which affects much more than the coffee industry, but also agriculture, services and social relationships between people. In Coorg, the planter community, hardly homogeneous, faces the new context generated by the removal of the government monopoly in different ways. The coffee industry framework, the rural System organisation, the whole district economy and geographie interactions are being refigured. Through landscape analysis, interviews with planters and an analysis of agricultural census data, it appears that the liberalization is indeed the origin of a complicated process of rural change, the steps of which are difficult to assess.
La libéralisation de l'économie indienne entreprise au début de la décennie 1990 est un événement facteurde profonds changements. Dans le cadre d'une étude de la dynamique du monde rural indien, cet article s'intéresse aux conséquences locales de la dérégulation du marché du café dans le district du Coorg, au sud-ouest de l'État du Karnataka. La communauté des planteurs, peu homogène, s'adapte de diverses manières à la nouvelle donne issue de la disparition du monopole exercé par l'État. Les structures d'encadrement de la production, l'organisation du système rural, la vie économique et les solidarités géographiques à l'intérieur du district tout entier sont en recomposition. La libéralisation est bel et bien à la source d'un processus complexe de «changement rural» dont on évalue difficilement les étapes à venir.