Political India: Engaging America

From The Hindu, with minor changes

CHENNAI: Labour migration from rural to urban centres and employment-focussed government policies such as the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) are having a noticeable effect on the supply of agricultural workers in farms across Tamil Nadu.

Districts such as Theni exemplify some of the complexities of these labour market effects. In the relatively dry Andipatti taluk, sugarcane farms and the attendant agri-business of sugar production in mills have until recently thrived. At Rajshree Sugars and Chemicals, the only sugar mill in Theni district, the annual quantum of sugarcane crushed grew at an average rate of 27.49 per cent between 1990 and 2005. Since 2006, however, it has on average fallen by 27.51 per cent annually. Why is this happening?

O. Ramaswamy, secretary of the Sugarcane Production Farmers Association in Periyakulam taluk, argues that labour migration from farms to NREGS sites has gained significant momentum. “Before the NREGS was implemented I had 25 workers on my farm, now only three workers turn up daily,” he said.

An important aspect of this phenomenon is that the workforce is predominantly female. Women are employed because they are more effective than men at jobs such as detrashing (removal of dry stalks and leaves from the main stalk), and men are twice as costly, according to Mr. Ramaswamy.

The unfortunate coincidence for sugarcane farmers and other cultivators is that the uptake of the NREGS schemes is also predominantly by women: approximately 90 per cent of the workforce on two sites that this correspondent visited in Theni comprised of women.

Mechanisation could be an alternative, according to G. Sathiyamoorthi, General Manager at Rajshree Sugars. Yet, progress in this regard has been modest given the small size of farm holdings and inertia with respect to traditional cultivation techniques.

As a result, the farmers face the choice of switching to less labour-intensive crops such as coconuts (not always feasible given the low irrigation levels) or ceasing farming altogether. Farmers in the region have been petitioning the government to either run NREGS works during their off-season months or include farm work within the scope of NREGS (albeit paying the workers directly as is the current practice).

P. Rani, the head of a self-help group in Lakshmipuram village and a worker on an NREGS irrigation tank project, argued that detrashing is a difficult job. Mr. Sathiyamoorthi concurred, admitting that sugarcane detrashing could be a back-straining eight-hours-a-day effort.
Given that the daily wage on the farms is the same as that at the NREGS site (Rs. 80), workers prefer the latter. District Collector P. Muthuveeran says that within Theni there is likely to be an increase in the daily wage rate under the NREGS to Rs. 100 in the next few months.

However, wage differentials go well beyond the NREGS and encourage, for example, migration within the region. District officials explained that in the better-irrigated Cumbum Valley, for example, it would be common for workers to get up to Rs.130 a day and to have work opportunities throughout the year. There are fewer opportunities available through the year in dry tracts such as Andipatti, and daily wages here rarely rise above Rs. 80.

K. Prahbakaran, a sugarcane farmer in Theni taluk, said farms were also losing out to textile mills. Textile mills in Tirupur are taking large numbers of women in buses from Theni villages daily to mill-sites.

Though they are paid low daily wages, after around three years of such work they are paid a sum in the range of Rs. 25,000 to 50,000. In urban centres such as Madurai, hotel waiters can earn between Rs.2,000 and Rs.2,500 a month besides about Rs.200 a day as tips.

Taken together, these factors generate a powerful labour displacement effect from (and where feasible, a wage-rise effect in) agricultural lands.

Labour migration is a consequence of economic opportunities emerging in urban centres, and the NREGS is a much needed poverty alleviating initiative that has almost directly put money into poor rural households. However the externalities associated with these factors have increased the risk of a fall in agricultural production and consequent inflation.

An interim subsidy for farm production and support towards mechanisation in the affected areas may be the best option at this juncture.

Labels: agriculture, migration, mills, NREGA, NREGS, rural labour, sugar, Theni, wage differentials

# posted by Narayan Lakshman @ 7:51 PM