Why do our farmers and farm labour get the lowest wage rates?

India’s economy has been among the fastest growing economies in the world, at least till 2016 and, one of its major contributors has been the agriculture sector. Agriculture remains the largest employer, employing around 150 million of the total workforces of 408 million. Over the years the sector has made significant variations in production and seen an increase in the diversification of crops largely driven by the demand of the urban consumer. While looking at overall improvement of the farm sector, the Indian farm wages needs a keen look as well.

Almost seventy per cent of Indian farmers are small and marginal ones who operate with less than one hectare of land. These small farmers manage to stay afloat as they do not employ labour and rely entirely on income generated from their small pieces of land. According to a study by  the Center for Development Research (University of Bonn (ZEF) and ICRIER , the last 20 years of data shows that wages of India’s farm labourers increased at an abysmally low average annual rate of 3.2 % in real terms. What this means is that for an average agricultural labourer the increase was from rupees 50 per day two decades ago to about rupees 90 per day. This is far lower than any urban unskilled worker in any part of the country. What is also tragic is that the agricultural worker today earns half of what is the mandated minimum wage of rupees 178 a day.

Read more: https://www.siasat.com/why-do-our-farmers-and-farm-labour-get-the-lowest-wage-rates-2100819/