Contradictions in the Last Mile: Suicide, Culture, and E-Agriculture in Rural India

Despite its use to exemplify how the world is ‘‘flat,’’ India is in many ways ‘‘spiky.’’ Hyderabad is a prosperous hub of information–communication technology (ICT) while its impoverished agricultural hinterland is best known for dysfunctional agriculture and farmer suicide. Based on the belief that a lack of knowledge and skill lay at the root of agrarian distress, the ‘‘e-Sagu’’ project aimed to leverage the city’s scientific expertise and ICT capability to aid cotton farmers. The project fit with a national surge of ‘‘last mile’’ projects bringing ICT to the village, but it was unique in using ICT to connect farmers directly with agricultural scientists acting as advisors. Such projects fit the interests of many actors, which has led to an unrealistic national enthusiasm about their impacts. This article uses the first five years of the project as a lens to view the cultural nature of both indigenous agricultural knowledge and ‘‘scientific’’ agricultural advising. Unlike lay publics whose uptake of science is better known, with farmers the invention and 1 Washington University, St. Louis, MO, USA Corresponding Author: Glenn Davis Stone, Prof. of Anthropology and Environmental Studies, Washington University, St. Louis, MO 63130 Email: [email protected] Science, Technology, & Human Values 000(00) 1-32 a The Author(s) 2010 Reprints and permission: sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav DOI: 10.1177/0162243910374808 http://sthv.sagepub.com