Richa Kumar is Associate Professor of Sociology and Science and Technology Studies (STS) in the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences at the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi. She has been studying issues at the intersection of agriculture, food, human health and the environment from a social science and STS perspective for the last 20 years. She has published "Rethinking Revolutions: Soyabean, Choupals and the Changing Countryside in Central India" (Oxford University Press, 2016) and co-authored the State of Rural and Agrarian India Report 2020 among other journal articles, book chapters and public opinion pieces.
Her research and teaching interests are in the Sociology of Agriculture, Environment and Climate Change; Sociology of Food, Nutrition, Toxicity and Health; Science and Technology Studies; and Rural and Agrarian Policy. She is the Principal Investigator of the IIT Delhi Grand Challenges Project on Measuring agrochemical body burden in a select human population, allocating exposure by source, and studying the implications for public health and agrochemical regulation in India (2020-2025). Her collaborative work with Sangtin Kisan Mazdoor Sangathan (Sitapur) on diets, nutrition and agrarian transformation in western Avadh, Uttar Pradesh has been co-curated on the bilingual portal www.foodcultures.org for dissemination to the larger public. Her work has also been featured on the TEDx platform, through two documentaries (by ScoopWhoop Documentaries and VICE News), and on Radio France.
She is a member of the Core Group on Right to Food and Nutrition of the National Human Rights Commission, General Body Member, Bharat Rural Livelihoods Foundation (BRLF), Member, National Technical Committee for implementing Himalayan Agroecology Initiative, and Steering Committee Member of the National Coalition for Natural Farming (NCNF). She is a core group member of the Network of Rural and Agrarian Studies (NRAS), a group of multidisciplinary scholars and activists working on agrarian issues in India. As part of NRAS, she has co-organized several conferences and mentoring workshops at IIT Delhi and across non-metro academic spaces in India. She is a recipient of the inaugural Elizabeth Adiseshiah Memorial Award (2019), the New India Fellowship (2010) and was nominated for the Women Leading IITs Leadership program (2022). She completed her Ph.D. from the Science, Technology and Society Program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, USA.
Students interested in doing a PhD in the following topics are welcome to contact her at richa@hss.iitd.ac.in:
a) new technologies in agrarian and rural spaces (drones, apps, sensors, blockchain, digital infrastructure, etc.)
b) understanding the role of agribusiness in the food system and implications for health and nutrition
c) studying the intersection of caste and the food system.
Links to recent lectures / interviews / articles / reports:
In conversation with Miguel Altieri (father of agroecology) on Local Knowledge, Global Change as part of the Reimagining the University Speaker Series and Rural Transformations Speaker Series, 30 June 2023
What we Lost Because of the Green Revolution as part of the panel on India and Southeast Asia in the Inter-Institutional Seminar entitled, “The Green Revolution: A Global Perspective on its 80th Anniversary,” 11 April 2023 (at 40:15 min)
How have changing ecologies figured into the new farm laws? The India Forum, 28 September 2021
Did India Need the Green Revolution? (Part I, Part 2, Part 3) Interviewed by Scoop Whoop Unscripted Documentary, July 1, 2021
Interviewed by Prof Metta Spencer, University of Toronto on the Save the World Talk Show, 12 July 2021
Food and Nutrition Security in India: Building Back Better from the Covid-19 Pandemic, Panel Discussion organised by the Baha'i Chair for Studies in Development, 22 January 2021
Reforms for farmers need to look at more than mere efficiency of agricultural markets, Indian Express, January 5, 2021
Farm Debate: A Green Reality Check, Indian Express, December 7, 2020