HYBRID TIMES, HYBRID PEOPLE - CULTURE AND AGRICULTURE IN SOUTH-INDIA

Local agricultural practices in the semi-arid district of Bijapur (Kar nataka State, India) are based on precepts that recognize the ecologic al specificity of the region but are also culturally derived. Such pre cepts indicate an ethos in which humans, land and seeds are considered to be integrally linked to each other. However, as modem agriculture is promoted in the region it displaces the local precepts and initiate s significant ecological, social and cultural shifts. Agriculturists a ssess and comment on these changes through cultural commentaries that indicate both the primacy of modem agriculture in reconstituting the c ulture of the region, and the continuity of the ethos that links human s, land and seeds.