Impact of Labour Scarcity on the Agricultural Economy of Dharwad District
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Date
2013
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Publisher
UAS, Dharwad
Abstract
Labourers constitute a vital input in agricultural production. Scarcity of farm
labourers is a grave concern for the farmers, who may not even hesitate to abandon farming.
Taking into consideration this pressing problems existing in agricultural economy, the present
study was undertaken in Dharwad district of Karnataka state. Multistage random sampling
procedure was adopted for the selection of the district, taluks, villages and farmers. A total of
120 farmers were selected for collecting the required information for the study. Tabular
analysis, Compound Growth Rate Analysis, Markov Chain analysis and Garrett ranking
technique were used for the analysis of data collected for the study. The study revealed that
the labour demand exceeded labour supply during the eight months, viz. January, May, June,
July, August, October, November and December. It was also found that the labour scarcity
reached its peak during the sowing and weeding operations in both rabi and kharif seasons. A
shift in cropping pattern was observed among the different groups of crops. The shift was
usually seen from High Labour Intensive (HLI) crops to other HLI crops and Less Labour
Intensive (LLI) crops, from Medium Labour Intensive (MLI) crops to other MLI crops and
LLI crops and from LLI crops to all the three groups. Owing to the labour scarcity and the
associated high wage rate, the small farmers, who were unable to hire casual labourers,
exhibited lower productivity levels for the HLI crops compared to the large farmers. Among
the various reasons reported by the farmers, the migration of the labourers to the nearby
villages for higher wages was opined as the most serious one contributing to labour scarcity.