This Cow is My Cousin

Why I Stopped Believing in International Agricultural Development

It was only 10am, and I was already sweaty and exhausted. I stumbled out of the house into the sweltering barn yard after my interpreter, noticing a small crowd amassed by the road, neighbors come to see the white women who’s interviewing farmers. Despite my best efforts, I stuck out in rural India.

The farmer led the way towards a loitering herd; a water buffalo, two brown, desi-breed cattle and a dismally uncomfortable and out-of-place Holstein. She was clearly overheated even as she pressed her belly into the coolest thing around, the dirt. Her black and white spots were indistinguishable under a cake of mud, her ears were droopy, and her eyelids and tail were fighting a losing battle against a cloud of flies.

The farmer said something in Marathi to my interpreter while pointing between me and the cow. They both laughed.

“He says ‘this cow is like you,’” my interpreter explained, “your cousin.”

When I met this cow, I was doing research in rural India.

I was asked by an organic ag non-profit to search for evidence that fertilizer made from desi (native) cow manure led to higher yields when used on desi plant species then the manure of hybrid/imported breeds. They, in…