Malawi'’s agricultural sector is critical to its economy, employing around 77% of the population and accounting for 23% of gross domestic product (GDP). The majority of workers in agriculture are smallholder farmers, many of whom cultivate less than one hectare of land. Despite its importance, the sector faces significant challenges, …
Efforts to promote food security must distinguish between short-term and medium-term measures, but also between countries with agricultural potential and without such potential, argues this paper. Furthermore, while high international food prices provide appropriate incentives for agricultural development, it would be misguided to expect that they will automatically result in …
As NREGS is gaining popularity, finding labourers for farm work has become herculean task } DO not implement the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) in the agriculture-intensive areas in the district, farmers here said in a petition submitted to District Collector P Umanath. The Central government's NREGS, which aims …
The relatively lower reduction of poverty in Orissa, 0.2 percentage points per annum from 48.6% in 1993-94 to 46.4% in 2004-05, has been a matter of concern. The current exercise attempts to analyse whether part of the explanation lies in the state of affairs in agriculture. An analysis for 2004-05 …
West Bengal encourages child labour by fixing wages for juvenile agricultural workers---------- While child labour is banned nationwide, the West Bengal government has not realized it yet. Recently, the Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee government framed a fixed wage for juvenile agricultural labourers. The joint order by the agriculture and labour departments fixed …
An uneasy calm envelops the dusty roads and recently harvested fields of Khiala village in Mansa district of Punjab. The village looks abandoned except for a few eager eyes scanning the only vehicle moving around on a sunny afternoon. As this correspondent reaches the Dalit-dominated western side of the village, …
KAILASHAHAR, June 17: Tripura tea gardens are facing a shortage of labour with the expansion of National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) scheme in all four districts, thus absorbing about 20-22 per cent tea workers. General Manager of Laxmi Tea Co Ltd of the Tripura Group of Gardens J C …
June 14: Farmers are finding it difficult to hire agricultural workers as they are attracted towards the money offered in National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS). This has affected farming during the kharif season across the district. The situation has become so bad that some of the farmers are hiring …
DH News Service,Bagepalli: Hundreds of labourers started on their feet to cover 45 km stretch from Bagepalli to Chikkaballapur as paadayatra to draw the attention of the government to their demands.
Thousand of unskilled workers employed in works undertaken by the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) across Tamil Nadu are agitated over the erosion of a substantial part of their daily wages. Their apprehensions are based on what labour leaders call
Karimnagar, Sept. 19: The National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme of the Central government has inadvertently led to large-scale mechanisation in the agriculture sector of the district. More than 4.50 lakh people have been working on various NREGS projects in the district and this has created acute shortage of farm labourers. …
The race by food-importing countries to secure farmland overseas to improve their food security risks creating a "neo-colonial' system, the United Nations' top agriculture official has cautioned. The warning by Jacques Diouf, director-general of the Food and Agriculture Organisation, comes as countries from Saudi Arabia to China plan to lease …
In what looks like the latest crisis to strike India's food bowl, migrant labourers, who earlier came in hordes to till Punjab's unending agricultural lands, have suddenly disappeared, forcing landlords to stop short of kidnapping them from railway stations and bus stops.
Labour pangs for farmers seem to be far from over. First it was the overall shortage of manual labour and now early rains are becoming a cause of worry for farmers. An early monsoon is good news for farmers, but the need to transplant paddy as soon as possible has …
Amnesty International criticized poor working conditions and forced labour in Brazil's fast-growing sugar cane sector on Wednesday, as the government tries to promote the cane-based ethanol industry as a way to reduce poverty. The human rights group said Brazil's government has taken steps to improve working conditions in rural areas, …
