ABSTRACT

This article unfolds how an extreme acceleration in the price of a seed in 2012 changed farming in a rural area of India by reorienting the imagined sources of wealth in farming. The seed in question is guar which have been grown for centuries for cow fodder, but which is also used in fracking, and because of a growing international demand combined with a limited supply and wild speculation, the prices in 2012 grew exponentially with 1500% in a period of 3 months, after which it crashed at a similar rate. The article argues that this acceleration of prices caused an escalation that changed the perspective of change for farmers. it shifted the main focus from farming as a repetitive event tied to the seasonal weather changes, to one of future potentiality tied to sudden market movements. This shift in the scale of measuring change in farming moved farmers from producing seeds to also speculating in seeds, through methods of trading and stocking. The guar price acceleration opened up to imaginaries of new avenues of future income from farming that was not flowing in with the rain, but with the market.

摘要

本文通过重新定位想象中的农业财富来源，揭示了2012年种子价格的极端上涨如何改变了印度农村地区的农业。所涉及的种子是瓜尔豆，瓜尔豆已经生长了数百年，但也用于压裂。由于国际需求的增长，加上供应有限和投机活动，2012年的价格成倍增长，2012年为1500％。 3个月的时间后，它以类似的速度崩溃。文章认为，价格的上涨导致了升级，改变了农民改变观念。它将主要关注点从与季节性天气变化相关的重复性农业活动转移到与突然的市场波动相关的未来潜力之一。衡量耕种变化的规模的这种转变使农民通过交易和放养的方式从生产种子转向也进行种子投机。瓜尔豆价格的上涨为假想开辟了一条新的未来收入途径，这些途径并非来自雨水，而是进入市场。