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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Should MNREGA labour be used for farming?

Should MNREGA labour be used for farming?

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published Published on Oct 12, 2011   modified Modified on Oct 12, 2011

-The Business Standard

Yes, it will help combat the acute shortage of farm labour, but it goes against the Act’s core principles.

Devinder Sharma 

Food and agricultural policy analyst

The crisis in agriculture has worsened and it is directly proportionate to the spread of MNREGA

Isn’t it strange? The Mahatma Gandhi Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MNREGA), which was primarily designed as a radical and novel response to combat rural poverty, is actually hitting the very foundations of agriculture. An acute shortage of farm labour across the country at the peak and crucial time of crop harvesting and sowing is not only playing havoc with food production, but is also increasingly forcing small farmers to abandon agriculture.

It isn’t aberrant weather, uneconomic farm prices and the increasing corporatisation of agriculture that alone is responsible for the prevailing agrarian distress, the unavailability of farm labour has added to farmers’ woes. In my opinion, it is the single most important factor that is forcing small farmers to sell off their meagre land holdings and join the growing ranks of landless workers. No wonder, travelling across the country, the common refrain that I hear is: “Please ask the government to ban MNREGA. It is killing us.”

I remember the time when trains steaming in from Bihar and eastern Uttar Pradesh into Ludhiana, Patiala and other prominent destinations in Punjab would come over-loaded with workers. These migrant labourers would generally arrive in the second half of March and stay on till July, helping farmers harvest the wheat crop and also transplanting paddy with the onset of monsoon rains. Today, the railway stations look deserted. Getting hold of a farm worker has become the biggest challenge for any farmer. And if you think the situation in Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra and Kerala is any different, you are mistaken.

MNREGA has now completed five years. Many believe with not much meaningful work available, it is already faced with mid-life crisis. Nevertheless, it is in these five years that the crisis in agriculture has also worsened. For those who want to see, the crisis in agriculture is directly proportionate to the spread of MNREGA. The intra-state movement of labour, and of course the exodus from the rural hinterland to meet the burgeoning needs of real estate, expressways and urban infrastructure has diverted the workforce from poorly paid agriculture. And still, despite the recommendation of the ministry of agriculture, the ministry for rural development (MoRD) has refused to slow MNREGA work during the peak farming season.

Some years back, agriculture was brought under MNREGA activities after a lot of hue and cry. The Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) had identified 50 districts for launching technological interventions by Krishi Vigyan Kendras (KVKs) on a pilot basis. These included operations like water harvesting, digging farm ponds, rooftop rainwater harvesting, drought proofing, micro-irrigation and renovation of traditional water bodies. These activities would certainly go into much needed asset creations in agriculture, but it is generally believed that pressure from agribusiness – including the sectors dealing with farm machinery, herbicides and GM crops – is holding the crucial decision of MNREGA’s convergence with peak farm operations.

MNREGA is incomplete without incorporating crop harvesting and sowing. Considering that two-third of the MNREGA workforce comprises small and marginal farmers, and knowing that more than 42 per cent farmers (this data is still to be updated) want to quit agriculture if given an alternative, agriculture cannot be allowed to suffer any more blows. Already some studies have pointed to the frightening scenario of the country turning into a major food importer before the end of the decade.

As a welcome move, I find some state governments are in the process of extending several benefits that have already been allotted to SC/ST families, to be extended to small farmers. Inclusion of sowing and harvesting as work per se under NREGA may not be practical but the alternative could be to provide compensation to small and marginal farmers during the months of sowing and harvesting. Hence I have two suggestions: first, the MoRD should direct the state governments to ensure no MNREGA work activities are undertaken during the peak farming seasons. Second, and most importantly, since most MNREGA workers are land owners, the monthly wages applicable during the farming season should be given directly to them.

The author blogs at: http://devinder-sharma.blogspot.com

----

Nikhil Dey

Activist, Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan (MKSS)*

The suggestion violates the principle of generating additional employment, by directing workers to work as farm labour, in existing employment

If you can’t end it, change it,” seems to be the attitude of the powerful adversaries of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MNREGA). Reacting to its most undeniable success – the increase in wages and the bargaining power of rural workers – big employers, farmers and industrialists are beginning to exert political pressure to deploy MNREGA workers as farm labour and change the fundamentals of the programme.

MNREGA is meant to be a legislation that generates employment, and empowers landless labour and the rural poor through additional employment at minimum wages. Additional benefits come through the building of permanent assets that enhance their livelihood security. Poor and marginalised communities also benefit through the development of common property assets. In other words, it was designed to be a programme by the poor, of the poor and for the poor. Some benefits could accrue to others, but there is an acknowledgement that MNREGA would be aligned with an exploited population and, therefore, potentially there could be some negative effect on the more affluent sections of society. Ironically, some of its success has become the cause for the current threat against it — this time under the guise of another “innovation”.

The recent suggestion that MNREGA labour be used for farming activity goes against the core principles of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act in at least 10 ways:

It violates the principle of generating additional employment, by directing workers to work as farm labour, in existing employment. 

It violates the principle of creating durable employment generating assets. Even the popular and sustained land development work on the lands of the poor will reduce. 

It would undermine equity and land reform by subsidising profits for the rural landlord, and facilitate absentee landlordism, by underwriting the labour costs of the farmers. 

It will severely impair the building of rural infrastructure for marginalised communities, such as road connectivity with Dalit villages and remote hamlets. 

It will undermine the crucial transparency and public accountability measures built into the programme by removing its collective “public” nature, and placing the poor at the mercy and supervision of private employers. Public vigilance and supervision will be an impossible nightmare. 

It will make it impracticable to ensure proper working conditions, such as working hours and “worksite facilities”. In fact, many of the labour deployed as farm labour might be pressured by farmers to work not just on their fields, but also in their homes. In some cases farmers might keep a share of the workers’ wages by giving them an advance. A new kind of debt bondage might appear. 

It will negatively affect the bargaining power of wage labour by reducing the number of employment opportunities, and it could even start a downward wage spiral in other employment in the rural areas. 

It will make it very difficult to have the poor plan for and decide on their own works. Rich landlords will dominate the gram sabha meetings and insist that work on their own farms becomes the priority . 

It will create a new kind of economic dependence since this is a repetitive and not a one time activity. A time will come when only the farmers who are assigned MNREGA workers will be able to survive. 

Finally, this will undermine MNREGA itself and the shortcomings will become another reason to clamour for the law being wound up.

It is important to understand that the driving force behind this “reform” is the group that has suffered because of increased wages, and bargaining power of rural workers. If this reform “succeeds” it will translate into a weakening of their bargaining power. Some of these reforms took place in the EGS in Maharashtra before it turned into an ineffective scheme. Is there an intent here to repeat that failed experiment?

*MKSS activist Aruna Roy also contributed to this piece. Roy is a special invitee to the Central Employment Guarantee Council, of which Nikhil Dey is also a member 

The Business Standard, 12 October, 2011, http://www.business-standard.com/india/news/should-mnrega-labour-be-used-for-farming/452178/

Tagged with: NREGS NREGA



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