LIVELIHOOD ANALYSIS OF AGRICULTURAL LABOURERS IN ANDHRA PRADESH
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Date
2022-08-04
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guntur
Abstract
Agricultural labourers are the most unorganized and exploited class in the rural population of the country. Agriculture labourers are those who derive their main source of income by working on farms of others for a wage. The number of agricultural labourers rose almost three times over the period from 1951 to 1991from 27.3 million in 1951 to 74.6 million in 1991. As per the census of 2
011, 263 million people are engaged in the agriculture sector and over half of them are now agricultural labourers, a trend observed for the first time in the past 40 years. Livelihood is the means of people use to survive themselves, to endure, and to prosper. A study on livelihood analysis of agricultural labourers in Andhra Pradesh was carried out in three districts Srikakulam, Guntur and Kurnool from three regions of Andhra Pradesh during 2018-20. From each selected district two mandals have been selected for the study by using simple random sampling. From the selected mandals, four villages have been selected by simple random sampling method. From each selected village, ten agricultural labourers were selected at random, thus making a total of 240 agricultural labourers. Considering the importance, livelihood security and attitude of agricultural labourers towards their livelihood were selected as dependent variables, index and scale were developed respectively. Scale was developed for attitude by using summated rating technique. The attitude scale comprised of 22 statements. The study was conducted by following an Ex-Post-Facto research design. Data was collected by pre-testing followed by personal interview method. For the purpose of statistical analysis of the coded data various statistical tools were used viz., frequency, percentage, class interval, ranking, correlation analysis, multiple liner regression analysis and Chi-square test inclusive.
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The detailed analysis of profile characteristics of agricultural labourers indicated that majority of the members were middle aged (52.91%), illiterate (27.08%) with medium size family (70.00%), medium agricultural labourers experience (40.84%), low farm experience (35.83%), marginal land holding (54.58%), majority marginal tenant land holding (50.00%), wage work as occupation (32.50%), majority had annual income of Rs. 46,753-89,000/-., medium savings (65.00%), medium expenditure pattern (63.75%), medium urban contact (64.58%), medium deferred gratification (65.84%), medium credit orientation (57.50%), medium achievement motivation (60.84%), medium economic orientation (55.84%), medium self confidence (65.83%) and medium level of aspiration (64.16%). In Chi Square analysis urban contact significant at 0.01 level of significance and credit orientation, expenditure pattern, savings, annual income, tenant land holding, farm experience significance at 0.05 level of significant. Majority had wage earning+ crop production (31.66%) as livelihood pattern as option. The detailed analysis of dependent variables indicated that majority of the agricultural labourers had moderately favorable attitude towards their livelihood (49.58%) and medium livelihood security index (62.92%), the components wise livelihood securities were medium asset security (52.50%), medium food and nutritional security (41.25%), medium educational security (62.50%), medium habitat security (48.34%), medium social security (63.75%), medium clothing security (71.67%), medium health security (71.66%), medium transport security (60.00%) and medium information security (64.16%).
The relationship between profile characteristics of agricultural labourers with attitude towards their livelihood, variables like age, family size, land holding, occupation status, annual income, savings, expenditure pattern, urban contact and achievement motivation, economic orientation found to have positive and significant relationship and the multiple linear regression analysis (MLR) indicated that all the eighteen independent variables put together explained about 63.00 per cent variation in the attitude of agricultural labourers, remaining 37.00 per cent was due to the effect of extraneous characteristics. Similarly, the relationship between profile and livelihood security revealed that land holding, annual income, occupation status, savings, expenditure pattern, urban contact, deferred gratification, achievement motivation, economic orientation and level of aspiration were found to have positive and significant relationship with livelihood security and that the multiple regression equation with eighteen selected profile characteristics put together contributed 58.60 per cent to the total variance in the livelihood security; remaining 41.40 per cent was due to the extraneous effects of the variables. In case of association between profile characteristics with attitude towards their livelihood, the profile characteristics like agricultural labourer experience, economic orientation, landholding positive and significant association at one per cent level. Similarly, the association between profile characteristics with livelihood security the variables such as age, education, farm experience, expenditure pattern and achievement motivation exhibited positive and significant association at one per cent level.
The most important constraints faced by the agricultural labourers were: lack of fixed wages for fixed work (88.75%), agricultural labour work involves much drudgery (82.50%), no fixed for fixed work (80.83%), mechanization led to decreased demand for labourer (80.41%), lack of hygienic living conditions at home and worksite (80.00%), poor social relationship existing with other sections of society (77.08%), inadequate opportunities for health care (77.08%). Suggestions perceived by agricultural labourers to improve their livelihood security were wage rates must be increased (89.58%), establishment of small scale labour intensive enterprises (87.91), implementing more government schemes to increase the employment opportunities
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(87.08), establishment of village markets for purchase of agricultural produce (61.66%), providing timely and quality inputs to the farmers (59.16%). The strategy was designed with a five step progressive approach with five core areas to improve the livelihood security; the core areas were 1) Education and Training, 2) Group dynamics and Cultural heritage 3) Health and Habitat, 4) Support and Services, 5) Communication and Networking.
Description
LIVELIHOOD ANALYSIS OF AGRICULTURAL LABOURERS IN ANDHRA PRADESH