Mr. Ranjit Kumar Sarkar
PhD Fellow
Department of Agricultural Economics, BAU, Mymensingh
One of the major challenges that the rural economy of Bangladesh faces is to generate productive employment for the growing labour force. In Bangladesh, each year nearly one million people are added to the labour force, most of them reside in rural areas. The gap between the number of new rural workers and the number of new jobs in agriculture is growing in Bangladesh. Agricultural advances alone will not be able to meet the rural employment challenge. The purpose of the study was to develop understanding of the determinant, farm to non-farm backward and forward employment linkages, pattern of employment, income and expenditure of rural landless non-farm households and recommend policy to promote employment in Bangladesh. The study was conducted in three villages of Pirganj Sadar Upazila of Thakurgaon district giving emphasis on poverty incidence and intensity of farm related non-farm activities during the period August 2005 to October 2007. A sample of 280 household was selected for the study. The study used both primary and secondary data and applied descriptive and statistical analysis. About 55% of the households had no cultivable land and 40% members were earning members. Fifty seven percent workers were literate. Out of 515 members 206 were non-farm workers. As regards rural non-farm employment typology, about 29% of the earning members were sales workers, 19% production workers, 17% professional,13% transport workers, 13% labourers/helpers, 5% clerical and related workers. Results from the logit model showed that out of ten variables, 6 were significant at 1% level of significance. Marginal effect of household skills was 0.98, which was the highest, meaning that if the HH acquired skills by way of training, doing-learning process and education, the probability to participate in non-farm employment increased by 98 percent. The farm to non-farm backward, forward and total employment linkage both for Aman and Boro rice were 0.16, 0.41 and 0.58 respectively, which meant that for producing, processing and marketing of Aman and Boro rice per hectare, total of 16, 41 and 58 maydays of backward, forward and total employment were created in non-farm sector against 100 maydays of employment in farm sector. Incase of consumption linkages, positive relation was found between consumption and income. But for farm to non-farm income/return/wage rate, the relationship was found inverse. Monthwise and seasonwise, farm earning members’ employment, income, and expenditure and wage rates were always less than those for the non-farm earning members. Lean-1 period i.e. the months of August, September and October month was the lowest employment and income opportunities for the farm wage labour. From the study it was found that farm employment rose during peak seasons i.e. transplanting and harvesting of Aman and Boro rice but fell in lean seasons. Non-farm employment and income also rose just before, during or after harvesting of Aman and Boro rice. There is a positive relation between farm and non-farm employments. Month and season wise income and expenditure followed the same pattern of employment. The income-expenditure gap was Tk. 1720 on an average considering non-food expenditure without loan installment and was Tk. 240 with loan installment. The lessons learnt is that the poor landless rural non-farm households can only bear their food, non-food expenditure and loan installments from their rural non-farm employment and income. Lack of skill was considered as a main constraint. For stimulating rural non-farm sector, the researcher suggests the set of recommendations: polices are needed to (i) invest in human capital development through making provision of skill development training in different trades for the poor and unemployed person and set-up training centre in the premises of rural town and bazaars or nearby well connected locations (ii) promote key small scale rural industries: mainly on backward industries like agricultural machinery spare-parts manufacturing workshop/industries including leathe machine, handloom/powerloom industries and forward linkage industries like husking mill, wheat, maize, mango and litchi processing, milk processing and mini garments industries (iii) provide financial support: mainly seasonal loan for workers engaged in different micro enterprises business like tailors, carpenters, mason, blacksmith and others on easy terms and conditions (iv) develop non-crop enterprises like commercial poultry and dairy farm in the rural areas (v) invest in rural roads, electricity, transport and other ancillary facilities for agri-business and overall economic development (vi) set-up institution to monitor non-farm sector development and (viii) link agriculture with rural non-farm sector.
Challenges, Employment, Productivity, Economic, employment
Socio-economic and Policy
Employement
PhD thesis of Mr. Ranjit Kumar Sarkar, Department of Agricultural Economics,BAU, Mymensingh, Year 2011
Thesis