Labour Absorption in Crop Production in Andhra Pradesh

41 Pages·2013·0.21 MB·English

Labour Absorption in Crop Production
in Andhra Pradesh: Issues and Evidence
Niladri Sekhar Dhar1
Abstract: This paper deals with aspects of labour absorption in agriculture and patterns of
employment. It deals, more specifically, with seasonality, the part played by hired labour in the labour
process as a whole, and with issues of the gender division of labour in employment. The data used in
this paper are mainly cross-sectional primary data collected from three villages of Andhra Pradesh for
the production year 2005-06. Moreover, comparisons being drawn with results from other village
studies, and comparison, in the case of one of the study villages, with labour absorption in village-level
rice cultivation in 1974. This paper demonstrated the persistence of seasonality in agriculture, the
predominance of hired labour in the labour process; the rising importance of piece-rated wage contract
in total wage contracts. It also discusses the issue of gender division of labour in employment in the
three villages. Another major outcome of the proliferation of piece-rated contracts is the obscuring of
the gender division of agricultural operations.
Keywords: agriculture; India; labour absorption; seasonality; gender division; wage contract
JEL Classification: J23, J41, J43
Acknowledgements: I thank Prof. Madhura Swaminathan and Prof. V. K. Ramachandran for their comments and
suggestions. I am also thankful to the Foundation for Agrarian Studies for allowing me to use data collected
from three villages of Andhra Pradesh under the “Project on Agrarian Relations in India.”
1 Senior Research Fellow at Foundation for Agrarian Studies.
1
Introduction
In agrarian economies like India, the capitalist development in agriculture is uneven. The level of
interaction between human labour and other means of production in crop cultivation is vastly
differentiated. In this paper we try to explore some specific aspects of labour process – the use of
labour in crop production - in different social settings. It deals, more specifically, with the part played
by hired labour in the labour process as a whole, different forms of labour hire, and with issues of
gender division of labour in employment. The aspects of labour absorption in agriculture and patterns
of employment is discussed with evidence obtained from three villages situated in three markedly
different agro-ecological zones of Andhra Pradesh.
This paper is organised into following sections. Section 2 discusses the relevant literature on the issues
of labour absorption in crop production, Section 3 briefly describes the production conditions of the
study villages. Section 4 discusses features of labour use, while Section 5 makes a comparative analysis
of labour use in paddy cultivation. Section 6 discusses the types of labour contract in paddy cultivation.
The terms labour use, labour absorption, labour utilisation and labour demand are used interchangeably
to mean the same thing.
Relevant issues of labour absorption
Labour absorption in crop cultivation is determined by a variety of factors. The most important are
perhaps the scale of operation and intensity of input use (Ramachandran 1990, Bardhan 1983), an
individual household's position in the class hierarchy (Athreya et al. 1986, Ramachandran 1990) and
farm size (Booth and Sundrum 1984, Sen 1964). Early studies on labour absorption were based on a
framework that took farm size, productivity, and total labour use per unit of land into account (Sen
1964, Athreya et al. 1986, Bharadwaj 1994)2. Subsequent research examined a broader range of factors
that influence the scale of production and input use, which in turn determine the level and pattern of
labour absorption in crop cultivation. Ishikawa (1981) summarised these factors as natural (climate, soil
etc.), technological (irrigation, the use of modern implements, HYV seeds, fertilisers, pesticides, etc.)
and institutional (farm size, tenancy, levels of knowledge and information, and tradition and customs).
The framework of farm size-productivity-labour had been criticised by Athreya et al. (1986) who
proposed an alternative analytical framework which argued that differences in productivity were mainly
because of differences in an individual household's position in the class hierarchy and consequent
differences in the intensity of input use. The factors influencing labour use pattern in crop cultivation
2 Also see Bhattacharya and Saini 1972, Bharadwaj 1974.
2
are divided into two broad categories by Ramachandran (1990). The major labour-augmenting factors
are irrigation and the use of new bio-chemical inputs, and the labour-displacing factor is the
mechanisation of crop operations. Changes in cropping pattern and crop diversification affect both the
number of days of labour absorbed and the pattern of employment (Bardhan 1983, Ramachandran
1990, Ramachandran et al. 2002, Mehta 2006). The impact of farm mechanisation on employment has
also been described as “indeterminate” (Osmani 1998). The pure effect of tractorisation on labour use
in a single season is negative (Farrington et al. 2006, Basant 1987), while studies also show that the pure
labour-saving effects of mechanisation are often offset by the labour-augmenting effects of use of
complementary inputs (Rao 1975, Kalirajan and Shand 1982, Estudillo et al. 1999). The net impact of
these two opposing forces on labour utilisation has been a continuous point of debate.
Other issues discussed in the literature on labour demand are seasonality, that is, variation in labour
demand in peak and lean agricultural seasons (Benson 1979, Ryan et al. 1979), the changing
composition of family labour and hired labour in total labour use (Hayami and Kikuchi 2000, David
and Otsuka 1994) and increasing (or decreasing) use of female labour in total hired labour use (Agarwal
1992, Ramachandran 1990, Ryan et al. 1979). Most studies of labour absorption in Asian countries (and
the great majority of early studies) were undertaken to illustrate the pattern of labour use in rice
production (in different East and South-east Asian countries) and wheat production (mainly in India
and Pakistan).
Gender division of labour
The gender division of work is a crucial feature of the labour process in rural India. The gender
division of labour is influenced by economic and institutional factors and is, in certain important sense,
a social and cultural construction.3 Within agricultural tasks, for instance, weeding, transplanting and
non-mechanised post-harvest operations are considered “female-specific” jobs. On the other hand,
land-preparation-related activities such as ploughing, levelling the land with animals or machines, and
plant protection are often considered male-specific jobs. Harvesting and threshing generally brings both
sexes to the fields. Jackson and Palmer-Jones (1998) argued that notions of “heavy” and “light” work
influenced the gender division of labour, and that female labour was mostly used for “light” work.
Technical change in agriculture, new job opportunities in the non-agricultural sector, changes in
cropping pattern, and the social burden of domestic labour on female workers play an important role
in determining the gender division in crop production (Ryan and Ghodake 1984, Ramachandran 1990).
There are striking regional variations in the gender division of labour in agriculture (Boserup 1976,
3 See Kapadia (1996).
3
Ramachandran 1990). Ramachandran (1990) showed that, in specific regions, although technical
changes in agriculture altered the combination of male and female labour time, the pattern of
allocation of specific tasks between male and female workers remained unaltered.
Barker et al. (1985) argued that the intensification of paddy transplanting, crop care (weeding and
fertilizing), harvesting and processing additional yields had worked to increase the demand for female
labour time. The use of mechanical reapers and threshing machines not only reduced the demand for
total labour, but also changed the composition of male and female labour time in favour of males
(Paris 1998). Within the labour process, the type of crops cultivated has been seen as a determinant of
the gender division of labour. Some scholars have argued that the labour process in high-value crops or
cash crops is male-dominated while female workers are confined to subsistence crop cultivation (FAO
et al. 2010, Lastarria-Cornhiel 2006, Garcia 2004, Sen 1999), a conclusion that is not necessarily borne
out by international evidence. The gender division of labour is not static: in certain areas, tasks
undertaken by men have become, because of altered social and economic circumstances, female-
dominated tasks (Paris 1998).
Piece-rated contracts
The proliferation of piece-rated wage contracts is almost universal in developed agricultural regions of
India, primarily reported by village studies at various point of time (Ramachandran 1990, Duvvury
1989, Harriss 1991, Gidwani 2001). Though large-scale surveys fail to monitor or gauge this change in
rural production systems. In a study of villages in North Arcot, Tamil Nadu, India, Harriss (1991)
observed that there had been a shift away from standard daily payments to specific piece-rated
contracts between 1973-74 and 1982-83. Other studies have pointed out that piece-rated contracts are
widespread in HYV-dominated areas in operations such as paddy transplanting and cotton picking
(Ramachandran 1990 and Duvvury 1989).
The rise of piece work in the 1990s occurred particularly in areas of capitalist agriculture where an
expansion in cropping intensity involved a shorter time period to complete agricultural operations
(Gidwani 2001). The need to complete the work in time drives the employer to resort to piece-work,
because workers tend not to shirk due to an in-built incentive system of working faster to earn better
remuneration. Roumasset (1994) argued that the advantage of piece-rate over time-rate for some
agricultural tasks is that shirking is easy to spot by ex-post inspection. He argued that piece rates reduce
“effort-shirking” but allow “quality-shirking”. “Effort-shirking” is reduced because piece-rates tend to
screen out less productive workers (Stiglitz 1976).4
4 Hart (1986) terms organisation of the piece rate work group as an “exclusionary labour arrangement.”
4
Ramachandran (1990), paraphrasing Marx argued that piece-rated operations are effective when the
quality of work can be determined by the eye. Marx, cited in Ramachandran (1990), argued that “since
the quality and intensity of work are here controlled by the form of wage itself, superintendence of
labour in great part becomes superfluous.” Under a piece-rate work regime, both employer and
employee minimise the disutility related to supervision (ibid.). When there is a shift from time-rates to
piece-rates in an agricultural operation, the employer hands down the task of supervision to a person
who has emerged from the ranks of the workers, a head labourer, who is also negotiator, who then
allots the jobs to the members of the group and supervises the entire operation (Ramachandran 1990).
The opportunity of an immediate confrontation between the dominant landowner class and the
economically weaker workers is reduced, as the task of supervision previously done by the landowner is
now conducted by a member of the working group (Breman 1985, Gidwani 2001).
The choice of labour contract is also determined by variations in labour demand that arise from
differences in the growth cycle of a crop, by an individual farmer's perception about timing of
operation, precision required to perform specific operations, and by the utilisation of new machines to
achieve optimal levels of timeliness and reduce crop losses (Hayami and Kikuchi 2000, Toquero and
Duff 1985).
The emergence of piece-rates have had a significant impact on the gender composition of labour use
in various agricultural operations. Duvvury (1989) apprehended that piece-rated forms of wage
payment would restrict women's employment opportunities. However, lack of detailed data on labour
use poses limits to the study of gender aspects of piece-wage contracts.

Andhra Pradesh was considered an “early reformer.” The growth rate of agricultural GDP in Andhra
Pradesh was 2.5 per cent between 1981-90 and 2.7 per cent between 1991-2000, and coastal Andhra
Pradesh was considered an important site of agricultural change during the Green Revolution. The
growth rate in the State declined markedly from 1990-91 through 2004-05 (Dev 2007). The annual
compound rate of growth of the gross value of crop output in the State, which was 2.66 per cent in
the period 1980-92, declined to 0.37 per cent from 1991-92 to 2004-05 (ibid.). The rate of growth of
public investment in agriculture declined from 8.5 per cent between 1980-81 and 1990-91 to 1.4 per
cent between 1990-91 and 2000-01 (Revathi and Galab 2010). A critical component of public
expenditure is investment in surface irrigation. Net irrigated area in Andhra Pradesh declined from 43.5
lakh hectares in 1990-91 to 37.1 lakh hectares in 2004-05 (GoAP 2007). The annual rate of growth of
private investment in agriculture increased at a rate of 4.7 per cent from 1980-81 to 1990-91; the
corresponding rate for 1990-91 to 2000-01 was (-) 3.8 per cent (Dev and Ravi 2003).
5
Historically, landlordism and the concentration of land ownership have been salient features of
agrarian structure in Andhra Pradesh (Ramachandran et al. 2010). Data from the land holding surveys
of the National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO) show that, in 2003, about 3 per cent of
households in rural areas of the State owned about 37 per cent of the total area covered by ownership
holdings of land. Furthermore, in 2003, about 53 per cent of all households, 65 per cent of Dalit
households, and 49 per cent of Adivasi households in rural Andhra Pradesh did not own any
agricultural land at all (Bakshi 2008). Disparity in the regional distribution of the forces of production
is also a salient feature of agriculture in Andhra Pradesh. Rayalaseema and southern parts of Telangana
have characteristically been dry regions, backward in irrigation development and prone to frequent
droughts (Revathi 2007).5
According to Subrahmanyam and Aparna (2007), the share of agriculture in Net State Domestic
Product (NSDP) declined from 41.3 per cent in 1983 to 27.4 in 2004, a period during which the share
of workers in agriculture declined from 79 per cent to 72 per cent. Thus indicating a fall in per capita
income among workers in the agricultural sector. Another feature of rural Andhra Pradesh is the
existence of a very high proportion of land-poor and landless wage workers (Ramachandran et al.
2010). In 2004-05, the proportion of agricultural labour households was 35.8 per cent in Andhra
Pradesh and 25.8 per cent at the all-India level (Labour Bureau 2008). According to the NSSO (2006),
of all male rural workers in rural Andhra Pradesh who were “usually employed,” 42 per cent were
employed as casual workers. The corresponding figure for India was 33 per cent. For females, the
corresponding figure for Andhra Pradesh was 49 per cent, and for India, 33 per cent. A large section of
the work force in Andhra Pradesh -- a proportion substantially higher than in the rest of India -- thus
depends on wage work.
Successive reports of the National Sample Survey indicate decline in the rate of growth of rural
employment in Andhra Pradesh (Dev 2007). In 2004, the Commission on Farmers' Welfare appointed
by the Government of Andhra Pradesh wrote that, in Andhra Pradesh, “the crisis [in agriculture] is also
reflected in other features of the rural economy: the decline in agricultural employment and stagnation
of other employment…” (Government of Andhra Pradesh 2004).6 Furthermore, the Commission on
Farmers’ Welfare in Andhra Pradesh states that “one of the reasons why the farming crisis has been so
acute in Andhra Pradesh is that non-farming employment has virtually stagnated and there have been
hardly any non-agricultural livelihood opportunities that would allow members of farming households
5 The region of Telangana has become more differentiated in the contemporary period, with Western Telangana being
less irrigated and more drought-prone than the north .
6 Three years later, the Human Development Report (HDR) of the Government of Andhra Pradesh (GoAP 2007) noted
that “the agrarian distress in the state coincided with the period in which reforms were initiated.” (GoAP 2007).
6
some kind of buffer against losses in cultivation.” (Government of Andhra Pradesh, 2004)
Description of study villages
The Foundation for Agrarian Studies undertook the studies in three villages of Andhra Pradesh in
2005-06, under the project “Project on Agrarian Relations in India” (PARI).7 The data constitute the
empirical body of this paper. A census-type survey of households was conducted in December 2005.
In May 2006, a sample survey was conducted to collect detailed data on labour use in crop production,
employment and income.
Ananthavaram
Ananthavaram, in Guntur district, was selected purposively for a resurvey. This village was also
surveyed by P. Sundarayya in 1974. According to the National Agricultural Research Project
(henceforth NARP), Ananthavaram is situated in the Krishna-Godavari zone in Kollur mandal of
Guntur district.8 The village is situated in the paddy-dominated area of south-coastal Andhra region
and is almost entirely irrigated. Crop husbandry continues to be the main source of employment for a
large section of the working population.
The survey data show that total area under cultivation was 2464 acres (997.57 hectares), of which 88
per cent was irrigated while 12 per cent was unirrigated.9 Net sown area was 1775 acres or 719 hectares.
Of the total cropped area, 47 per cent was cultivated during the kharif season, and 46 per cent was
cultivated in the rabi season and the remaining 7 per cent was utilised to cultivate annual crops. Apart
from main tracts of village land, cultivation was done on the relatively more fertile Lanka lands (river
side land) which were mostly sown with betel vine and turmeric. Most of the operational holdings in
this village was double-cropped; the index of multiple cropping being 170.
Land distribution in this village was much skewed, as revealed by a Gini coefficient of ownership was
0.86. The land poverty among households compelled them to lease in land, mainly on fixed cash
and/or kind terms. Tenancy has always been an important mode of production in this village. The
evidence of high prevalence of tenancy can be traced from Sundarayya's study of Ananthavaram in
7 For more details see <http://www.fas.org.in/pages.asp?menuid=16>
8 According to the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) designed NARP classification, Andhra Pradesh is
divided into seven agro-climatic zones. These zones are i) North Coastal, ii) Southern, iii) Northern Telangana, iv) Scarce
rainfall zone of Rayalaseema, v) Southern Telangana, vi) High altitude and tribal, vii) Krishna Godavari. Extracted from
http://www.imdagrimet.gov.in/node/290
9 The entire net sown area of this village was irrigated in the kharif season. Varalapuram canal, from the Prakasam
barrage on the Krishna river, was the source of canal irrigation, which irrigated 88 per cent of the gross cropped area
during 2005-06 agricultural year. Official data suggest that almost the entire extent of cultivated land in the village was
classified as being under canal irrigation. However supplementary irrigation from groundwater was almost the norm in
this village (Ramachandran et al. 2010).
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1974 (Sundarayya 1977). He observed that in 1974, 149 households or 18.2 per cent of all families
leased in land, while in 2005 we found an even larger incidence of tenancy. In 2005-06, 38 per cent of
all households operated some leased land and of total land operated, 52 per cent was on lease contract.
Cropping pattern
Major crops grown in this village were paddy, maize, sugarcane, various pulses and oilseeds. In the
kharif, the major crop grown was paddy, while important crops in the rabi were maize and pulses.
Paddy-maize and paddy-pulses constituted the most important crop cycles for the peasantry in
Ananthavaram.10 In 2005-06 agricultural year, 52.7 per cent of the total cropped area was cultivated
with the paddy in kharif and maize in rabi. The paddy-pulse crop cycle was cultivated on 29.8 per cent
of the total cropped area. Sugarcane was cultivated annually, and it occupied 6 per cent of the total
cropped area.11
Level of mechanisation
The use of tractors, pump sets, sprayers and threshers were the major means of mechanisation of
agricultural operations. Machines were extensively used for tilling and threshing of harvested crops,
though careful ploughing for crops like betel leaf and turmeric was done by animal power. The village
rental market for machinery was active. Tractors and threshers were generally hired-in by the tenant and
other peasants on rent. Other labour saving machineries like transplanting machines, combine
harvesters, and weeding machines were not adopted here.
Irrigation
The crop cycles practised in this village require secured irrigation especially for Rabi and annual crops.
The entire net sown area of this village was irrigated in the Kharif season. Varalapuram canal, from the
Prakasam barrage on the Krishna river, was the source of canal irrigation.12
Major sources of irrigation were state-built canals, borewells and tubewells and open wells and tanks.
To maintain secure and constant water supply to irrigate annual crops throughout the year, the
cultivators used multiple sources, example, canal and ground water simultaneously. Generally, canal
irrigation was utilised for Kharif crops, while borewells and tubewells (lifted by mechanical power)
10 Major pulses were black gram, green gram, red gram.
11 Other crop cycles were paddy-oilseeds, paddy-other cereal crops, betel leaf, paddy-other non-cereal/pulse crops and
turmeric-maize crop cycles. Oil seeds include mustard, sesame and sunflower. Other cereal crops include jowar, millet.
Other crops include fruits and vegetables cultivated in very tiny plots of land.
12 Official data suggests that almost the entire extent of cultivated land in the village was classified as being under canal
irrigation. However supplementary irrigation from groundwater was almost the norm in this village. (Ramachandran et
al. 2010).
8
were utilised for Rabi crops. Of the gross cropped area, 39.5 per cent was irrigated through canals, 31.7
per cent through borewells/tubewells and 28.1 per cent of land with multiple sources. The use of
multiple sources was higher in the case of annual crops.
Bukkacherla
Bukkacherla, according to NARP, is situated in the scarce rainfall zone of Rayalaseema in Raptadu
mandal of Anantapur district. In this water-deprived village, agriculture was mostly dependent on
rainfall. Non-existence of any large scale irrigation facility compelled cultivators of this village to adopt
a cropping pattern which required very little water.
Land use and tenurial status
Area under cultivation in this village was 1789 acres or 724.29 hectares, of which, 86 per cent was
cultivated during the Kharif season, 10 per cent in the Rabi season and the remaining 4 per cent area
was cultivated with annual crops. The index of double cropping was 105.
Another feature of agrarian relations was the low incidence of tenancy as data show only 21 per cent
of gross cropped area was under lease contract. The highest proportion of land on lease contract was
taken by the class of poor peasant which was about 40 per cent of total leased land.
Cropping pattern
A shift in the cropping pattern has been observed since 1980s towards the cultivation of oilseeds (in
this case, mainly groundnut).13 At the district level, area under oilseeds has been steadily increasing since
1980-81; it increased from 40 per cent of the total cropped area in 1980-81 to 78 per cent in 2000-01
(Ramachandran et al. 2010). The crop duration of inter-cropped groundnut was relatively longer than
that of other crops cultivated in kharif crops.14 Households also cultivated paddy in both seasons, and
in the rabi season, paddy cultivation was irrigated mainly by privately installed borewells. Of late, some
peasants started cultivating various vegetables and fruits on land with newly installed drip irrigation
facility.
In kharif, groundnut inter-cropped with various pulses was cultivated in almost 72 per cent of the total
13 In Rayalaseema region, the cultivation of non-food crops (mainly cotton and groundnut) started to rise from 1910-11.
The area under groundnut cultivation steadily increased from 6.02 per cent of net area cropped in 1916 to 18.2 per cent
of net area cropped in 1939 (Rao and Rajasekhar 1994).
14 The cultivators sowed groundnut in the month of June-July along with pulses, but they harvested groundnut during the
months of November and December while they harvested pulses in the months of January-February. So the entire crop
duration was about 7-8 months.
9
cropped area. Only 9.5 per cent of the total cropped area was cultivated with fruits and vegetables.15
Other crop cycles were paddy in both the seasons, paddy-groundnut, irrigated groundnut, and only
paddy either in kharif or rabi season.
Level of mechanisation
The major mechanised agricultural operations were ploughing of land (which was usually done with 4
or 9 pronged cultivator attached to a tractor), spraying plant protection mainly on inter-cropped
groundnut and fruits and vegetables, threshing of groundnut and paddy. Rest of the operations were
performed by either human labour or with the help of animal labour. Irrigation (though only 22 per
cent of the gross cropped area was irrigated in the survey year) was mainly done from
borewells/tubewells. Electric pump sets were utilised to lift ground water. Recently, some cultivators
started to use drip irrigation technique to irrigate fruits and vegetables.
Irrigation
As noted earlier, cultivation was rainfed and crops requiring little water were cultivated in this village.
Data on the extent of irrigation clearly depicts the lack of irrigation facility, as 78 per cent of the gross
cropped area in this village did not have any source of irrigation and only 22 per cent of the area was
irrigated by borewells/tubewells installed privately.16 To irrigate the land, cultivators had to depend
heavily on their investment capacity for installation of borewells/tubewells. They used electric pump
sets to lift groundwater or for drip irrigation facility.17 The usage of drip irrigation facility was confined
to upper peasants who could irrigate 41 per cent of total cropped area under their command with drip
irrigation facility. The coverage of drip irrigation was only 2 per cent of the gross cropped area in
2005-06.
Kothapalle P. N
Kothapalle village is part of the groundwater-irrigated multi-crop region of the North Telangana zone
(according to NARP), in Thimmapur (Lower Maner Dam Colony) mandal, Karimnagar district.
15 The most commonly grown vegetables were brinjal, chilli, tomato, spinach, ridge gourd, coriander, onion and cluster
beans. During the rabi season, watermelon and muskmelon were also grown. Most commonly grown perennial fruit
crops were papaya and sweet lime.
16 The main source of irrigation in the district of Anantapur has always been groundwater. Official data on the village
indicate that the major source of irrigation is water from wells fitted with electric pumpsets. Residual irrigation is
provided by tanks. Between 1991 and 2001, according to Census of India data, there was a steep decline in total irrigated
area, from 292 hectares to 178 hectares.
17 The drip irrigation facility was a subsidised scheme under Andhra Pradesh Micro-irrigation Project of the Government
of Andhra Pradesh to bring 2.5 lakh hectares under micro-irrigation launched on 30.11.2003. Anantapur was included in
this scheme. Under this scheme, in this village, at least 6 households had received drip irrigation facility in 2005 and
almost 42 acres of the gross cropped area was irrigated through drip irrigation facility.
10