11. Shortages in Agriculture Labour Market and Changes in Cropping Pattern

Shortage of labour in agriculture is the challenge for agriculture professionals, farmers and government’s food security policy of India. The factors those are fluctuating agriculture labour market are multi-dimensional. These are socio-economic, environmental and agricultural marketing infrastructure, and all these are not mutually exclusive and not static in nature. This chapter reveals the factors that influence agriculture labour market and consequently changes in wage rate and cropping pattern in the study area. There were 180 households which were surveyed from each migrant and non-migrant household from six villages in two districts of the Bundelkhand region, Uttar Pradesh, in 2011. Findings show that labour shortage in agriculture has faced by all categories of the farmers irrespective of caste and landholding, but it was mainly problematic to large farmers and high-caste households. The most serious and disheartening field operation is harvesting which has faced acute labour shortage that led farmers to skip farming or lease out landholding to the other farmers who have sufficient family labour along with farm machinery. It shows that leased-in land was higher among the household who have large family size, received remittances, insufficient landholding for farming and have farm machinery. Out-migration, MGRNEGA, disinterest in agricultural work and wage differential were main cause of labour shortage in agriculture. Inclusion of MGNREGA in agriculture and introduction and implementation of cooperative farming are the main solutions to overcome labour shortage problem, and these solutions have suggested by the farmers.