Our empirical focus is on India, home to one of the world’s most rapidly expanding poultry industries. Simultaneously, India is facing an unprecedented threat from the global spread of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI). We are interested in understanding the challenges that the poultry industry is facing as HPAI viruses are found more frequently among wild and domestic birds in Asia. The project will investigate how avian flu outbreaks disrupt different parts of the supply chain from production to distribution, with particular focus on how EIDs affect logistics, planning, and labour. Led by a skilled researcher with expertise in agrarian studies and economic geography, our interdisciplinary team includes experienced scholars and early-career researchers with a keen interest in political dimensions of agrarian change and global health governance. Our findings promise to contribute significantly to cutting-edge academic debates on the role of the politics of natural resource industries in addressing sustainability crises in the 21st century.
Objective
The main objective of this project is to explore the challenges that outbreaks of avian flu pose for the poultry industry in India.
Background
Time frame: 4 years, from October 2025 through October 2029.
Participating departments: Centre for Global Sustainability; University of Oslo.
Theoretical basis / home fields: Human Geography, Agrarian Studies.
Methods: Qualitative methods, interviews, review of secondary sources, supply chain analysis.
Financing
8,000,000 NOK, funded by the Research Council of Norway, Groundbreaking research program.
