4 May 2008
Declining Working Population In Agricultural Activities
The benefits of globalisation largely accrue to some areas which are well endowed in terms of resources, some crops which have comparative advantage and some sections of the population that are engaged in producing the export commodities; In other words, the benefits of globalization is not neutral to areas, crops and people. The world is facing today a silent tsunami of soaring food prices. There is no dispute over the fact that many changes have come to the state with industrialisation and urbanisation but it is wrong to believe that every change is always good and for the health of the society. Sometimes the changes are not in the interest of the society. Migration from villages to the cities is going on and the whole process has become a continuous one. Urbanisation concerns the movement of population from agricultural to industrial work and from rural to urban places of residence. The rural youth finds that the urban, his counter-parts, are much better placed than what he is in the rural agrarian villages; they soon get themselves settled in life whereas he remains always unsettled. The rural population depends on agricultural and allied occupations. But as a result of increased contact with urban centres, this means of livelihood is forshaken by many in the lure of better prospect in industry. There is a great exodus from agriculture to industrial and semi-industrial centres. Agricultural workers constitute the most neglected class in Indian rural structures. Their income is low and employment is irregular. It often happens that the head of the household goes to the city to work in the unorganized sector on a temporary basis leaving his aged parents in the village. These workers have nothing except their labour to earn livelihood. They are generally unskilled, sometimes have to work from dawn to dusk. Earlier some of them had been working in cottage industries and village handicrafts during the off-season of agricultural activities but today they have disappeared and crushed by industrialization. In the absence of alternative source of employment, they are forced to depend on landlords who consequently dictate terms. For a substantial part of a year, they have to remain unemployed because there is no work on the farm lands. Institutional agencies are reluctant to provide loans to them. Because of their extreme poverty, they resort to the help of moneylenders who charge a high rate of interest. In fact, the debt of agricultural labourers passes from generation to generation and is never fully paid up. In a few states, the govt. is distributing land to landless labourers with a view to improving their economic positions, but they are underdeveloped and have backward infrastructure. The working population in agricultural activities is declining as the consequence of declining investment in agriculture sector. The most important cause for the decline of public investment is the diversion of resources from investment to current expenditure; a large portion of public expenditure on agriculture in recent years went into current expenditure in the form of increased subsidies towards power, fertilizers, waiving loans, etc., The biggest single malady in our major and medium irrigation sector has been the tendency to start more and more new projects resulting in wanton proliferation of projects, thin spreading resources and consequent time and cost overrun. In most of the projects, there has been inordinate delay in completion of construction of field channels and water course, land leveling and land shaping. A lot of fear and apprehension have been expressed in recent months regarding the impact of the new international economic order that is taking shape under the aegis of international monetary agencies on Indian agriculture. While the political parties resort to procession, agitation and human chain to draw the attention to price rise, the prime minister alleges them as politicizing the misery of the people. If the political parties do not articulate the concerns of the people, who would?
Farmers have at least the benefit of loan waiver and compensation for the crop damage, but the farm labourers have nothing. The people in the hamlets are ready to work but hardly have the job there. No planning in any country can be successful unless the masses are engaged to join hands with the planning authorities in a bid to carry out the plans and programmes framed for their upliftment and betterment. To protect the Indian agriculture and Indian farmers from foreign competition, it is therefore imperative for the govt. to lay down priorities for action. Great attention should be paid to rainwater harvesting and increasing the irrigation potential through scientific watershed development and minor irrigation. More focus should be laid on development and dissemination of agricultural technologies thus ensuring a continuous work to farm labourers.