Agricultural Wage Labour Research Articles

Naming and dividing: the production of residual labour in the region of Doñana

AbstractThrough a case study of the production of agricultural wage labour in southwestern Spain, in the region of Doñana, this articles analyses the process of constructing agricultural wage labour as a residual social relation. Through analysis of the deployment of labour in agro-industrial berry production, I trace the ways in which the notions of “temporariness” and “slave work” obscure the centrality of labour in the agricultural production process and conceal the reconfiguration of relations of exploitation.

Mujeres berracas: gendered work, geographies of exclusion, and rice farming in Tolima, Colombia

This article uses a Social Reproduction Theory (SRT) lens to illuminate the lived experiences of women in rice farming in rural Tolima, Colombia, by examining the gender division of labor, the devaluation of women’s work, and geographies of exclusion among farmers and farmworkers. Through the analysis of ethnographic findings, this paper argues that perceptions of women as either berracas [tough, badass, stubborn, and hardworking] or out of place legitimize the devaluation of women’s contributions to the political economy of rice. These gender dynamics create geographies of exclusion, shaping rural livelihoods and exacerbating disparities in resource access. This paper advances SRT’s understandings of agricultural wage labor, class differentiation, and how women navigate, resist, and shape their roles in agrarian communities.

Socio-economic Impacts of Forests Rights Act on the Individual Title Holders: An Analytical Study among the Lanjia Saoras of Odisha

The present study examines the socio-economic impacts of the Forest Rights Act (FRA), 2006 on Individual Forest Rights (IFR) title holders from the Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Group (PVTG) of Lanjia Saora in the Gumma block of Gajapati district, Odisha. It analyses the socioeconomic status, land use patterns, occupations, and convergence of government schemes for IFR households across 4 villages through household surveys and focus group discussions covering 52 households. Key findings i.e reveal livelihood dependence on agriculture, agricultural wage labour and lack of basic amenities like pucca housing, electricity and toilets for majority of households. While some support have been provided through rural housing, land development and horticulture schemes, the coverage remains limited. The study therefore recommends increasing awareness about FRA, promoting cash crops, horticulture, Non Timber Forest Products (NTFP) collection and marketing, skill development for off-farm livelihoods, improving connectivity and public infrastructure etc. It conlude the need to address developmental gaps of tribal IFR holders through appropriate policies and convergence of government schemes at the district level.

Staying in or out? COVID-19-induced healthcare utilization avoidance and associated socio-demographic factors in rural India

BackgroundAlthough evidence on healthcare utilization avoidance during COVID-19 pandemic is emerging, such knowledge is limited in rural settings. An effective policy to the COVID-19 shocks and stresses in rural settings require empirical evidence to inform the design of health policies and programmes. To help overcome this evidence gap and also contribute to policy decisions, this study aimed at examining COVID-19-induced healthcare utilization avoidance and associated factors in rural India.MethodsThis study used the third-round data from the COVID-19-Related Shocks in Rural India survey conducted between 20-24 September, 2020 across six states. The outcome variable considered in this study was COVID-19-induced healthcare utilization avoidance. Multivariable Binary Logistic Regression Model via Multiple Imputation was used to assess the factors influencing COVID-19-induced healthcare utilization avoidance.ResultsData on 4,682 respondents were used in the study. Of this, the prevalence of COVID-19-induced healthcare utilization avoidance was 15.5% in rural India across the six states. After adjusting for relevant covariates, participants from the Bihar State have significantly higher likelihood of COVID-19-induced healthcare utilization avoidance compared to those from the Andhra Pradesh. Also, participants whose educational level exceeds high school, those who use government hospital/clinic, engage in daily wage labour in agriculture have significantly higher odds of COVID-19-induced healthcare utilization avoidance compared to their counterparts.ConclusionOur study revealed that state of residence, type of health facility used, primary work activity and educational level were associated with COVID-19-induced healthcare utilization avoidance in rural India. The findings suggest that policy makers and public health authorities need to formulate policies and design interventions that acknowledge socioeconomic and demographic factors that influence healthcare use avoidance.

Gas extraction operations and livelihood diversification in Tanzania: Rhetoric and reality

The lives and livelihoods of farming and fishing communities in rural Tanzania are highly susceptible to extractive investment operations. Livelihood diversification in communities beyond agriculture and fishing can be an effective way to cope with the adverse impacts of extractive investment operations. Gas extraction operations (GEOs) are expected to change and diversify communities’ livelihoods. Tanzania has new GEOs; thus, it is necessary to investigate how they have diversified livelihoods in Mtwara Rural District. This article addresses the associations between GEOs and diversifying livelihoods. The paper explores (i) livelihood diversification before and during GEOs, (ii) associations between GEOs and villagers' livelihoods diversification, and (iii) communities' perspectives on GEOs and livelihood diversification. Proportionate stratified sampling was used to obtain 260 respondents. A questionnaire-based survey, four (4) Focus Group Discussions (FGDs), and fifteen (15) Key Informant Interviews (KIIs) were used to collect data. IBM-SPSS version 25 was used to analyse quantitative data. The Chi-square test was employed to analyse livelihood diversification concerning GEOs. Content analysis was used for qualitative data. Near and distant communities saw farming decline by 81.5% and 83.5%, respectively. Also, fishing declined by 85.2% and 83.7%. On the other hand, GEOs enhanced motorbike transport by 160.0% and 300.0%, food vending improved by 166.7% and 236.4%, and seashell collection increased by 816.0% and 462.5%, respectively. GEOs diversified farming (p = 0.001), fishing (p = 0.008), agricultural wage labour (p = 0.000), and crop business (p = 0.036) with moderate strength of association. GEOs have diversified livelihoods in the study area. The study demonstrates that communities surrounding GEOs are highly socioeconomically vulnerable due to GEOs which caused declining agricultural and fish catches, thus negatively affecting their livelihoods. It is recommended that long-term programmes such as the building of diverse agro-based enterprises for job creation, training on income-generating occupations, agribusiness and technical training are required to increase earnings and enhance living standards. Both public and private entities should conduct a targeted and context-specific initiative to increase livelihood diversification among nearby and distant households, which can improve livelihood resilience.

Casual Wage Labour, Food Security, and Sustainable Rural Livelihoods in Malawi

Casual wage labour (known as ganyu in Malawi) is a widely adopted strategy to cope with insufficient income and food production in rural households. Although previous studies have discussed the magnitude of the contribution of ganyu to rural livelihoods, the actual conditions of individual rural households have not been studied in detail. The current research conducted a detailed village-level case study to analyse the relationship between ganyu and rural livelihoods in Malawi. The characteristics of three categories of households were examined: those that engaged in ganyu, those that employed ganyu, and those that engaged in and employed ganyu. The study found that: (1) income from ganyu and its contribution to household food security differed considerably based on age, gender, household circumstances, and local conditions; (2) households that employed ganyu were not necessarily wealthy or achieved self-sufficiency in maize production; and (3) contradictory behaviour of a household to engage in and employ ganyu was a result of the context-specific needs of that household. Rather than viewing ganyu as poorly paid agricultural wage labour, the study propose acknowledging that each household has its own rationale for engaging in or employing ganyu. Such an understanding from a household-level perspective would better inform poverty and food security policies.

Agricultural Labour Status and Problems in India: An Analytical Study

The concept of “agricultural labourer” refers to all those engaged in different agricultural activities like preparation of the soil, ploughing operations, sowing, planting, weeding, harvesting etc. Agricultural labourers made up a significant portion of the workforce. They are generally landless and rely on wage labour in agriculture to survive. Problem like droughts, uncertain monsoons and seasonal periodical nature of agriculture, agricultural labourers often face the problems of unemployment and underemployment, eventually getting trapped by poverty. The scientific agricultural implements, high yielding variety seeds, fertilizers, pesticides, insecticides, increased irrigational potential would not have shown the desired progress without the assistance of agricultural labourers. Unfortunately, the agricultural labourers are deprived of their legitimate share in the returns. Further, the rural labourers engaged in household enterprises have also been affected as the new industrial products and displaces them from their traditional activities. Female rural labour has also been affected in as much as their wages are lower than those of the male labourer. Rural labour poverty- stricken as they are compelled to take loan from money-lenders and big farmers for meeting their domestic needs. In the wake of their inability to repay the loan amount, rural labour is reduced to miserable status of “bonded labour”- serving as servitors in the houses of landlord - cum - moneylenders. It is also important to note that rural labour often migrate from one place to other in search of employment. It indicates uncertainty of employment at a particular place and at a particular point of time. Majority of the rural population belonging to the categories of scheduled castes, scheduled tribes and other depressed sections of the society. The problems of these sections are multifarious and peculiar in nature. The women who have been looked down upon for long have also been facing the problems in leaving their lives as agricultural labourers. These labourers are at bottom of society still now.

The Effect of Renting in Cropland on Livelihood Choices and Agricultural Commercialization: A Case Study from Rural Vietnam

This paper investigates the role of land rental markets in livelihood choices using data from 792 farming households in rural Vietnam. First, we cluster households according to livelihood strategies and estimate the determinants of the respective decision. In a second step, we analyze the contribution of rented land in linking smallholders to output markets. Our results suggest that rented land can provide smallholders with an opportunity to increase their agricultural activities and avoid resorting to less remunerative activities such as agricultural wage labor. Moreover, rented crop area increases the probability of market participation as well as the quantity of sales. Our results point to the need for a further liberalization of land rental markets specifically targeted at households that have been excluded from more remunerative livelihood strategies previously. Supporting these households to have access to the assets required to cultivate the additional area is thus recommended.

Poverty and its Alleviating Strategies among Rural Farming Households in Benue State, Nigeria

The study analysed rural farming households’ poverty status and alleviating strategies in Benue State, Nigeria. The specific objectives of the study were to: describes the rural household heads’ socio-economic characteristics; determine the poverty status of the respondents and its determinants; and identify poverty alleviating strategies of the respondents. Data for the study was collected from 420 respondents selected using a multi-stage sampling technique. Data collected were analysed using descriptive statistics, the Foster-Greer-Thorbecke poverty measurement index, and the Binary Logistic regression model. The findings of the study revealed a very high incidence of poverty (70%), having a gap of 0.34, and severity of 0.17. Poverty in the area is positively associated with the age of the household head and household size, while gender, educational level, off-farm activity, membership of a group, farm size, and land ownership are negatively associated with poverty. The common poverty alleviation strategies identified were agricultural wage labour (48.6%), rental services (45.0%), and transportation business (36.7%). Therefore, it was recommended that the government and other stakeholders should initiate sustainable social protection schemes that can assist rural residents in alleviating poverty until their condition improves.

Integration in export marketing channels and farms' labor force composition: Female agricultural workers in the Moroccan vegetable sector

AbstractThe Moroccan agricultural sector employs around 40% of the country's total working population. Since the early 1990s, there has been a striking increase in the proportion of female wage laborers. This article investigates the effect of the gendered composition of the agricultural wage labor force on horticultural farms. We draw on an original data set collected in 2010, comprising 240 agricultural holdings located in the region of Souss Massa. The results suggest that local labor shortages do not play a major role in explaining the ratio of female hired wage laborers. Instead, it seems that quality requirements are encouraging farm holdings to hire a female labor force. [EconLit citations: Q12, O13, J43]

Land grabs, farmworkers, and rural livelihoods in West Africa: some silences in the food sovereignty discourse

ABSTRACT The global land rush has spurred small, modest, and big anti-land grab mobilizations, notably the food sovereignty movement. The movement has been instrumental in representing the interests of small-scale family farmers whose livelihoods are threatened by capitalist control over land in the countryside. However, this dominant narrative tends to overlook or de-emphasize some important diversity within the peasantry. In West Africa, anti-land grab discourses emphasize family farming as a major collective action frame, focusing less on issues related to agricultural wage labour – farmworkers’ access to land, food, and decent working conditions. If food sovereignty is to fully realize its potential power as a counter-narrative to neoliberalism, and as a possible democratic alternative for working people with differentiated and at times competing socio-economic interests, then demands that adequately reflect the agrarian struggles of the rural working people have to be put onto the agenda and engaged better than it is now.

Farm and non-farm income diversification activities among rural households in southeast, Nigeria

The study assessed farm and non-farm income diversification activities among rural households in Southeast, Nigeria. Purposive and multi-stage random sampling techniques were used to collection data from three hundred and sixty (360) rural households using structured interview schedule. Means, percentage and frequency count were used to analyse the objectives of the study. The result showed that 82.5 % of rural households diversified their income sources into other non-farm activities as against 17.5% that depended solely to farm activities. Further analysis indicated that 64.4 % of the rural households engaged in crop production, 46.9 % practiced livestock production, 5% were into collection of forestry products, 13.1 % engaged in farm products processing while 23.3 % engaged in storage and marketing of agricultural products. However, the various non-farm activities diversified into by the households were: petty trading (53.53 %), storage and marketing of agricultural commodities (31.31 %), sale of landed property (15.82 %), agricultural wage labour (16.84 %) and hire purchase (9.09 %). Others included rental services (19.52 %), transportation (example taxis, motorcycle and tri-cycle business) (21.21 %), craftsmanship (13.46 %) and civil/public service jobs (28.28 %). The study recommended that government should improve rural infrastructures like good road network, electrification, potable water, telecommunication service, and affordable healthcare system since they are important for enhancing socio-economic activities. It is also recommended that government should initiate policy for reducing risk and uncertainties inherent in agricultural activities in order to encourage farmers to remain in the business of farming.Keywords: Diversification, economic activities, rural households, livelihood, South East Nigeria

Identifying the most deprived in rural Ethiopia and Uganda: a simple measure of socio-economic deprivation

ABSTRACTThe Extreme Deprivation Index uses easily verifiable answers to ten questions about the ownership of the most basic non-food wage goods – things that poor people in a variety of rural contexts want to have because they make a real difference to the quality of their lives. Using this Index, we define rural Ethiopians and Ugandans who lack access to a few basic consumer goods as ‘most deprived’: they are at risk of failing to achieve adequate education and nutrition; becoming pregnant as a teenager; remaining dependent on manual agricultural wage labour and failing to find to a decent job. As in other African countries, they have derived relatively little benefit from donor and government policies claiming to reduce poverty. They may continue to be ignored if the impact of policy on the bottom 10% can be obscured by fashionably complex indices of poverty. We emphasise the practical and political relevance of the simple un-weighted Deprivation Index: if interventions currently promoted by political leaders and aid officials can easily be shown to offer few or no benefits to the poorest rural people, then pressures to introduce new policies may intensify, or at least become less easy to ignore.

Learning About Labour Impacts of Cash Transfers in Zambia

Over the past decade, several African governments have launched cash transfer (CT) programmes as part of social protection systems, with the aim of reducing poverty and hunger. Such programmes can also have significant impacts on rural livelihoods by inducing investments in productive activities and changing household labour allocation. In this paper, we look beyond the protective function of CTs and provide evidence on their impacts on labour supply. We use data from the second wave of the impact evaluation of the Zambia Child Grant model of the Social Cash Transfer programme. We focus on the response of households’ labour supply in terms of off-farm paid labour and own-farm labour. We find that CTs cause a shift from agricultural wage labour to own-farm labour and that overall have no work disincentives on-farm households.

The rise and rise of agricultural wage labour: evidence from Ethiopia's south, c.1950–2000

AbstractThis article seeks to examine the dynamic transformation in the system of labour mobilization and the consequent intermingling of peoples of diverse cultural background in northern Sidama, Ethiopia. It investigates the different labour recruitment strategies deployed in the study area at different times, ranging from traditional to hired labour. In the former case, the household plays a major role in the recruitment and supply of agricultural labour, whereas in the latter case, ‘trans-locality’ reinforced by migration becomes central to the labour history of the region. In the 1940s and 1950s, Emperor Haile Selassie I granted large estates of land in the study area to absentee landowners who started schemes of commercial coffee farming. The subsequent expansion of commercialized coffee farming in a locality called Wondo Gänät (northern Sidama) from the 1950s onwards was responsible for the introduction of agricultural wage labour into the wider region. There was no local surplus labour to satisfy the labour needs of the new coffee farms. This void was later filled by Kembata, Hadiya and Wolayita migrant labourers who flocked into the study area from regions widely noted for their scarcity of arable land. This translocal movement of workers paved the way for the beginning of wage employment and eventually the commodification of farm labour in line with capitalist agriculture. Although commercial coffee plantations provided the initial stimulus for labour commodification in the study area, sugar cane-based cash cropping has helped it flourish even further. I argue in this article that the imperial land grants of the late 1940s and 1950s were an important milestone both for the agricultural history of the study area and for the organization of farm labour. Most importantly, I also argue that some of the social tensions and conflicts that often haunt contemporary northern Sidama are legacies inherited from the labour migrations of the 1950s and 1960s and the demographic heterogeneity that ensued.

Off‐farm labor market decisions and agricultural shocks among rural households in Kenya

AbstractUsing household level data from rural Kenya, this article explores whether and how farm households respond to unfavorable agricultural production environments, including any ex post adjustments in off‐farm labor supply in response to unexpected weather shocks. While controlling for a wide range of educational, demographic, and other locational factors, we examine how long‐term weather conditions and specific rainfall shocks influence a household's decision to engage in, and their earnings from, the off‐farm labor market. We find that rural households engage in off‐farm work as a long‐term strategy to deal with the effects of anticipated weather conditions on their farming operations. The analysis does not reveal major short‐term adjustments in off‐farm engagement as a result of specific, unexpected rainfall shocks; these households do however rely on remittance income and petty agricultural wage labor under these circumstances. Holding other factors constant, and conditional on participation, households in areas with a more productive local agriculture tend to earn more from off‐farm work especially in the informal/business sector than their counterparts in regions with a less productive agriculture. As expected, a vibrant local economy in the form of public investment increases the probability of off‐farm participation.

Households' Income-Generating Activities and Marginal Returns to Labour in Rural Tanzania

This study uses detailed household-level data to assess whether rural Tanzanian households seem able to allocate labour so as to maximise their incomes, and what factors determine if they do. In contrast to much earlier work on income diversification I use crop-level data to explicitly evaluate marginal returns within agriculture. The integrated household survey used allows me to then link these returns to household characteristics and broader labour supply decisions and consumption behaviour. In line with expectations agricultural wage work seems to be a last resort option, as agricultural wage labourers have lower marginal returns than others due to a higher labour allocation to own agricultural production. Furthermore, wage rates are much higher than the agricultural shadow wages, implying that there are gains to be made from expanding the non-farm side of the rural economy. However, there is no evidence that households are stuck in agriculture due to being constrained from entering the existing labour market, and neither do I find preferences for own crops being important for labour allocation. Work preferences seem to play a role though, and the findings are consistent with both credit and social networks being important determinants of a household's marginal productivity in agriculture.

‘Monga’ in northern region of Bangladesh: a study on people’s survival strategies and coping capacities

The objective of this paper is to explore people’s survival strategies and coping capacities to combat monga at household level in the northern region of Bangladesh. The agriculture based rural economy, extreme poverty, highpercentage of landless, lack of sufficient caloric intake, unemployment of vast agricultural labour force etc. are the root causes of vulnerability to monga in the northern regions specifically few districts of greater Rangpur. Moreover, geographically this region is vulnerable to natural hazards such as floods and droughts. The past records of food shortages and famine reveal that the trend is still continuing in the monga-prone areas. The present study found that the most vulnerable groups in the monga-prone areas were agricultural wage labourers, landless and marginal farmers, female headed households, children, pregnant women and aged people. The present study also found that with a view to cope with the monga, various coping strategies such as selling of labour with advance payment at cheap rate, borrowing of money, selling of assets, looking for work in other areas, dependency on relief, selling of field crops in advance at cheap rate etc. were adopted by the affected households. The present study also found that coping capacity was associated with household head’s socio-economic status e.g. level of education, monthly income, types of occupation, etc. Vulnerability to monga was higher for the illiterate and low income groups than the educated andhigh income groups. The present study argues that the policy makers ofGovernment and NGOs should emphasize on enhancing of coping capacities of poor and marginalized groups through rural centric development, ruralemployment generation, maximum utilization of agricultural land, proper credit support and agro-based industrialisation in the northern Bangladesh.

Off‐farm Employment and Input Intensification among Smallholder Maize Farmers in Kenya

AbstractWe derive input demand functions for fertiliser and hybrid seed, testing for the combined and separate effects of income from non‐farm sources and agricultural wage labour among smallholder maize farmers in Kenya. More income from off‐farm sources, and specifically non‐farm sources, competes with maize intensification, particularly in more productive areas where use rates are higher. In less productive areas, where households rely more on off‐farm income and input use in maize is extremely low, agricultural wage labour reduces the likelihood that fertiliser is applied, but when used, has a positive effect on quantities purchased of both seed and fertiliser.

Demand for Seasonal Wage Labour in Agriculture: What Does Family Farming Hide?

AbstractThis article draws on the agricultural household literature to understand the dynamics of wage labour on farms in a context of family farming. The recent evolution towards an increased use of seasonal wage labour motivates the original distinction of three types of labour: family labour, permanent‐wage labour and seasonal‐wage labour. Considering the two wage labour types and hiring cost for seasonal workers, our empirical results based on 2000 French data on fruit and vegetable farms suggest that the choice between hiring permanent or seasonal wage labour is not only determined by the seasonality of the activity. Indeed, the characteristics of the local labour market also affect the trade‐off between permanent and seasonal wage labour. This result provides insights on the substitutability of the two labour types, especially when the local labour market is tight. Moreover, the substitution of seasonal‐wage labour for permanent‐wage labour can occur in the agricultural sector as a mean of increasing flexibility as well as reducing costs and commitments. Finally, family labour is found to substitute for wage labour and more specifically for seasonal‐wage labour.