scholarly journals Extent and Determinants of Poverty among Rural Non-Farm Workers in Punjab

Author(s):  
Rupinder Kaur ◽  
Anupama ◽  
Jasdeep Singh Toor ◽  
Kuldeep Singh

The economy of Punjab has been undergoing the process of structural change. The share of the primary sector in total employment has declined at a slower rate. Trends have that people are shifting to the non-farm sector as there is little potential in the agricultural sector to generate additional employment opportunities. The number of non-farm workers is increasing continuously in Punjab. In the non-farm sector, most of the regular jobs are being created in manufacturing and services. The non-manufacturing sector is mainly creating casual employment opportunities. In this background, the present paper examines the poverty status of the rural non-farm workers in Punjab. Using a sample of 659 households from the three districts of Punjab, the study reveals that about 19 percent of the non-farm workers live below the poverty line and 5.27 percent are extremely poor. The incidence of poverty is higher among the SC households than other castes. The workers, who are employed in casual jobs, are more prone to poverty. The greatest proportion of those living below the poverty line can be found in the case of the workers employed in brick kilns and in electronics repair works. About 37 percent of those working as construction workers, loaders in the grain market or in MGNREGS, are living below the poverty line. All of the wage workers in these three categories are poor and vulnerable. The proportion of non poor workers increases and that of living below the poverty line declines with the increase in the level of education and increase in the size of land ownership.

Author(s):  
Philip Martin

Why do farm workers become more vulnerable as countries get richer? As countries get richer, the share of workers employed in agriculture falls. In richer countries, hired farm workers do ever more of the work on the fewer and larger farms that produce most farm commodities. These hired workers include local workers who lack the skills and contacts needed to get nonfarm jobs that usually offer higher wages and more opportunities as well as legal and unauthorized migrants from poorer countries who may not know or exercise their labor-related rights. Government enforcement of labor laws depends on complaints, and vulnerable workers rarely complain. The Prosperity Paradox explains why farm-worker problems often worsen as the agricultural sector shrinks and lays out options to help vulnerable workers. Analysis of farm labor markets in the US, Mexico, and other countries shows that unions and fair trade efforts to protect farm workers cover a very small share of all workers and are unlikely to expand quickly. Most labor-intensive fruits and vegetables are eaten fresh. Unsafe food that sickened consumers led to voluntary industry and later government-mandated food-safety programs to ensure that food is safe when it leaves the farm, with protocols enforced by both government inspectors and buyers who refused to buy from noncompliant farms. This food-safety model offers the most promise for a new era in protective labor policies.


The study examined the arguments and counterarguments within the scientific discussion on commercial banks credit and the performance of real sector in Nigeria. The main objective of the study is to examine the effect of commercial banks credit on the performance of the real sector in Nigeria.Data was sourced from Central Bank of Nigeria Statistical Bulletin. A systematization literary approach for data analysis was Regression Analysis. Findings revealed that bank credit and bank lending rate does not have significant impact on real sector performance in Nigeria. It was showed that there was a positive and significant relationship between agricultural credit guarantee scheme fund and agricultural production in Nigeria. The study therefore recommends that banks should be directed to channel their credits towards the real sector to facilitate overall economic growth and development in Nigeria. It was recommended that there is the need policies that will favor the revamp of the agricultural sector in Nigeria should be given pride of place. Also, monetary authority through the Central Bank of Nigeria should create adequate policies and strategies towards deepening of the financial sector and reducing the cost of credit/loans so as to enhance productivity and consequently enhance the growth of the key sectors of economy such as manufacturing sector.


Author(s):  
Atayi Abraham Vincent ◽  

This research work address the positive effect of Agriculture on the manufacturing sector in Nigeria. The study made used of Ordinary Least Square Method estimation techniques. The findings showed that Agricultural output, government spending on agriculture, and real gross domestic product all have positive effects on the manufacturing sector. The effects is RGDP 66percent, AGRQ by 63%, and GOEXA by 96 percent. The study recommends among other things that government should allocate more resources to the Nigerian agricultural sector and ensure that the funds are judiciously use and that the government should also seek to strengthen its incentives for the manufacturing sector in order to promote increased industrial production and growth.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Swarna Weerasinghe

Health and safety standards are paramount to all agricultural workers and more so to the foreign seasonal farm workers. European, North American and Oceanic agricultural sector heavily depends on the foreign workers migrating temporarily to carryout seasonal agricultural work that are not attractive to local citizens. The aim of this chapter is to critically analyze existing workplace health and safety measures, policies and practices of Foreign agricultural workers with a secondary focus on Canadian public health standards that applies to COVID-19 pandemic control and beyond. During the pandemic, many countries opened international labour migration as a measure of economic recovery. Recent news media reported two Caribbean workers in the Canadian Agricultural sector, had died of COVID-19 complications. The basis of this chapter is the research based evidence that the author carried out on occupational health and safety standards of the population of foreign seasonal farm workers using a multi-method data collection: a scoping review of existing standards, policies and practices and personal interviews with seasonal agricultural workers and their employers. This chapter provides a critical analysis of data from multiple sources and from multiple jurisdictions to uncover gaps and malpractices of existing occupational health and safety practice standards for illness and injury prevention of foreign seasonal farm workers.


Author(s):  
Arjun Kumar Dahal ◽  
Khagendra Kumar Thapa

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to find out the condition of priority of commercial banks to provide loans to the agricultural sector and to find the relationship and impact of agricultural loans to the agricultural GDP of Nepal. Objectives: This study aims to compare the condition of loan disbursements in agricultural and manufacturing sectors. It further aims to compare loan percent with growth and contribution to the GDP of the agricultural and industrial sectors and tries to show the impact of agricultural loans to the agricultural GDP of Nepal. Methods: It was based on a descriptive and analytical research design. Statistical tools standard deviation, correlation, regression, etc. are used and Excel, and EViews software are used for the statistical calculations. Statistical calculations and graphs are simultaneously used to show and compare the condition of variables. Results: Commercial banks give higher priority to the manufacturing sector for loans than the agricultural sector. The Johansen Co-integration test indicates no long-run relationship between loans of commercial banks and agricultural output in Nepal. However, the least-squares method, it indicates that a positive causal relationship between agricultural loans and agricultural growth. Implications: The loans of commercial banks directly stimulate the growth of agriculture but the amount of growth is less noticeable. Thus, it is concluded that the commercial bank's loan alone cannot affect and control the growth of the agricultural sector of the Nepalese economy therefore the government should increase its expenditure on the agricultural sector.


Author(s):  
Jay L. Zagorsky

Since official U.S. poverty measures are based solely on income, the amount of wealth held by a family is immaterial in determining their poverty status. This research expands the poverty definition to encompass a family’s total financial resources. While most income-poor families have little or no wealth, approximately one-third have significant holdings. Using total financial resources both lowers average U.S. poverty rates over selected years from 15.2% of all families to a range between 8.8% and 11.3% and provides a measurement tool for tracking the effects of government wealth-building programs on families under the poverty line.


It has often been stated that the agricultural sector has the potential to provide the needed raw material for the manufacturing sector. It is pertinent to clearly identify this potential, interrogate why it still remains potential, and more importantly, suggest workable ways to sustainably and profitably exploit the potential as a going concern. This chapter is therefore designed to focus on enterprise expansion and opportunities for expansion in agriculture. The chapter is divided into the following sections: “Characteristics of Agriculture in Nigeria,” “Determinants of Youth Participation in Agriculture,” “Agricultural Enterprise Expansion and Agricultural Transformation,” “Enhancing Enterprise Expansion,” and “Opportunities in Agriculture.” The chapter concludes that for the potential of agriculture in an economy to be realized, the relevant stakeholders should know that business as usual is not an acceptable option; yield-increasing and enterprise-expansion-inducing strategies should be implemented in both the short and the long term. Recommendations are made to enable those engaged in agriculture to profit by it and increase in both output and in scale.


Author(s):  
Giulio Arcangeli ◽  
Veronica Traversini ◽  
Emanuela Tomasini ◽  
Antonio Baldassarre ◽  
Luigi Isaia Lecca ◽  
...  

Allergic disorders in the agriculture sector are very common among farm workers, causing many injuries and occupational diseases every year. Agricultural employees are exposed to multiple conditions and various allergenic substances, which could be related to onset of anaphylactic reactions. This systematic review highlights the main clinical manifestation, the allergens that are mostly involved and the main activities that are usually involved. This research includes articles published on the major databases (PubMed, Cochrane Library, Scopus), using a combination of keywords. The online search yielded 489 references; after selection, by the authors, 36 articles (nine reviews and 27 original articles) were analyzed. From this analysis, the main clinical problems that were diagnosed in this category were respiratory (ranging from rhinitis to asthma) and dermatological (eczema, dermatitis, hives) in nature, with a wide symptomatology (from a simple local reaction to anaphylaxis). The main activities associated with these allergic conditions are harvesting or cultivation of fruit and cereals, beekeepers and people working in greenhouses. Finally, in addition to the allergens already known, new ones have emerged, including triticale, wine, spider and biological dust. For these reasons, in the agricultural sector, research needs to be amplified, considering new sectors, new technologies and new products, and ensuring a system of prevention to reduce this risk.


2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (12) ◽  
pp. 5123
Author(s):  
Kamil Maitah ◽  
Luboš Smutka ◽  
Jeta Sahatqija ◽  
Mansoor Maitah ◽  
Nguyen Phuong Anh

This paper aims to examine the rice industry in Vietnam during the period 1997–2017, focusing its production and export. The total area of Vietnam is 33.121 million hectares, out of which 39.25% consists of agricultural land. The agricultural sector adds up to 24% of the gross domestic product (GDP), 20% of the total exports and over 70% of the total employment. Vietnam’s economy is highly dependent on the agricultural sector, specifically rice production, which constitutes 30% of the country’s total agricultural production value. While its production at first aimed to ensure food security in the country, to date, Vietnam is one the world’s largest exporters. While extensive research has explored the rice industry, studies looking at the production through the use of fertilizers, external factors such as the exporting price of other countries and world consumption rates are still lacking. Given the complexity of the topic, data were analyzed through descriptive, econometric and quantitative methods. For production and export analyses, two and four hypotheses were derived and examined, respectively, all based on economic theory. The model consisted of two equations: (i) the paddy production is impacted by rice’s yield and fertilizer use and (ii) in addition to internal factors, the growth of exporting rice in Vietnam depends also on external factors such as Thailand’s rice export price and world consumption rates. Based on the model, a dynamic forecasting method was employed, using the previous forecast values of the dependent variables to compute the future ones. Findings showed that 98% of Vietnam’s rice production is explained through the yield and fertilizer usage and 83% of Vietnam’s rice export is explained by the production, the price in Vietnam and Thailand and the consumption levels around the world. When it comes to forecasting, an 8% growth is predicted with a peak in quantity produced, with 49,461 thousand tons in 2023, yet with difficulties when it comes to exporting. The research predicts a stagnation in exports.


2020 ◽  
pp. 097215092091256
Author(s):  
Chandrima Ganguly ◽  
Joydeb Sasmal

This article calculates the magnitude of wage differentials across industries in the organized manufacturing sector of India and identifies the major determinants of wage differentiation among the industries. Using data from Annual Survey of Industries in India for the period from 2000–2001 to 2015–2016, this study shows that mean wage is less in labour-intensive industries compared to the capital-intensive industries. The results of panel regression of annual average wage on various industry-specific factors show that productivity of labour is the most important factor in wage determination, and productivity largely depends on capital–labour ratio. The other significant factors in this regard are farm size, amount of profit and proportion of casual and female workers in total employment. Important policy implication of this study is that regulatory wage fixation and wage bargaining outcomes are not as significant as productivity differentials in explaining wage gaps across industries.


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