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2.4 Agricultural workers and rural communities: Working Out of Poverty

Written by: International Labour Organization

Article Overview: A better understanding of the social and economic dynamics of rural communities is critical to the reduction and eradication of poverty. The world’s poorest countries are those most dependent on agriculture. Threequarters of the people in extreme poverty live in rural areas.

2.4 Agricultural workers and rural communities: Working Out of Poverty

A better understanding of the social and economic dynamics of rural
communities is critical to the reduction and eradication of poverty. The
world’s poorest countries are those most dependent on agriculture. Threequarters
of the people in extreme poverty live in rural areas,
usually those
remote from the main centres of economic activity or with the least productive
land. The lack of opportunities in villages drives women and men to urban
areas where life is almost as difficult, but there are more chances to earn
a little more money in the informal economy – as well as more risks.

The starting point for such an analysis is an understanding of the
seasonal nature of farming and the high risk of crop failures, which cause
large fluctuations in the generally low incomes of rural populations, particularly
in areas with unreliable rainfall and poor soils. Agriculture is the core
industry in most rural areas, employing between half and two-thirds of the
workforce in the world’s poorest countries and generating between a quarter
and a third of national output in many developing countries.

Work on farms accounts for 60 to 75 per cent of rural work and, together
with associated industries and services, is central to the livelihoods of
many of the world’s communities. Many rural families do not have access to
adequate sanitation, safe drinking water, health services and school places.
Their villages are often isolated, lacking road, electricity or telephone connections.
Hazardous child labour is pervasive.

The share of wage employment in agriculture, especially the number of
wage-dependent smallholders in agriculture, is continuing to increase in virtually
all regions, and accounts for some 40 per cent of the world’s agricultural
workforce. Of the 450 million workers in agricultural wage employment,
20 to 30 per cent are women.
Indigenous people and migrants form
a significant part of this workforce.

Wage workers in agriculture are particularly vulnerable to poverty, as
are many of the small and marginal farmers in developing countries. Indeed,
since many wage workers farm small plots and many smallholders work
away from their own land for considerable parts of the year, the distinction
between the poor who are landless and poor smallholders is hard to draw in
practice. Rural poverty is closely correlated to periods of forced inactivity typical of employment in agriculture, which create a large reserve pool of
labourers desperate for any form of work to sustain their families.

The lack of economic and social infrastructure needed for the sustainable
development of rural areas leaves rural workers marginalized, even
when they represent a majority of the workforce. Agricultural workers and
their families, whether on large-scale plantations or smallholdings or within
peasant communities, face many disadvantages in terms of access to credit,
markets, social services, labour protection and social security but, lacking
voice and representation in local, national and international politics, are
often overlooked in poverty reduction strategies.

Some countries specifically exclude the agriculture sector from their
general labour legislation. In others, general protective legislation may not
be fully applicable to the agriculture sector, or may simply not be applied.
For example, exclusions based on the size of an undertaking or on the
contractual status of the worker are common. In many cases, labour laws are
not applied because employers and workers are unfamiliar with the details
of the law; application is found to be impractical in agricultural enterprises
or enforcement is weak. Typically, casual, temporary or seasonal agricultural
workers do not enjoy labour protection equal to that of permanent
employees.

Hours of work in agriculture tend to be extremely long during planting
and harvesting, with shorter hours at off-peak times. During rush periods,
field work can last from dawn to dusk, offering little chance for rest breaks.
Because the distance from home to field may be great, many field workers
have no opportunity for a proper meal in the course of the day, increasing
their fatigue and undermining their productivity.

Minimum wages tend to be low or non-existent for agricultural workers
in general. Many casual, temporary or seasonal workers are paid at least in
part on a piecework basis, for instance per kilo of crop picked, row weeded,
or hectare sprayed. If rates are low, this can lead to people working very long
hours to earn a subsistence income.

Rural workers – both wage labourers and small farmers – face many difficulties
in forming and joining unions and other forms of workers’ organizations
to improve their living and working conditions. Legislation
protecting the right to organize, and in particular prohibiting discrimination
against activists, is often weak or inadequately enforced.

Large landowners and wealthy families tend to dominate the power
structures of rural communities and can intimidate workers to deter them
from building collective organizations, for example by threats of eviction,
the calling in of loans or violence. Access to protection by the police and the
courts is time-consuming and expensive, even when such mechanisms for
protecting civil and political rights are not in the hands of local elites. Challenging
the status quo in rural societies is risky, and with so many other
sources of insecurity in their lives, only the most courageous take such
action.

Yet despite all these difficulties, rural societies have the capacity to
change, given the chance. Rural cooperatives and other collective self-help
organizations of various kinds are important features of rural life in many
countries and an essential mechanism for building some degree of social and
economic security. Networks of public and private institutions, including rural employers’ and workers’ organizations, cooperatives and farmers’ associations,
have demonstrated that rural poverty can be overcome.

In many countries, land reform policies have shown that larger, more
industrial agricultural production combined with smaller intensively farmed
units that the poor can work productively for themselves can yield increased
productivity and better livelihoods. Along with the generation of non-farm
rural employment, the construction of better communications infrastructure
and the provision of vital social services such as health and education, improved
agricultural performance is a significant force in the fight against
poverty.

Related Articles
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  1.13 Working safely out of poverty: Working Out of Poverty
  1.19 Building trust: Working Out of Poverty

Article Tags: agricultural workforce, associated industries, child labour, core industry, countries work, crop failures, drinking water health, economic dynamics, eradication of poverty, extreme poverty, indigenous people, informal economy, livelihoods, poor soils, poorest countries, productive land, safe drinking water, seasonal nature, telephone connections, unreliable rainfall



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