Agricultural Development And Rural Labour

This Guidance document is developed in the framework of SO3-OO2 and aims to assist FAO Members in incorporating decent rural employment (DRE) interventions across different agricultural sub-sectors. The Guidance document is mainly designed for policy makers and staff responsible for strategic planning and programme development in the ministries responsible for agriculture and planning. It also addresses other public and private institutions involved in strategic planning for agricultural and rural development such as employers, producers and workers' organizations.

High rates of growth in agricultural production need not be incompatible with increased employment, income, and the satisfaction of basic needs in the lower-income developing countries. Emphasizing this theme, the author presents three alternative agricultural development strategies and suggests guidelines for identifying appropriate policies and p

Originally published in 1992, the volume shows through the lens of labour processes how global forces are played out at the local level. A range of important issues is addressed, including the commoditization and transformation of rural labour, and the role played by state policy in restructuring rural labour markets.

Farm workers were central to the development of Canada's prairie West. From 1878, when the first shipment of prairie grain went to international markets, to 1929, when the Great Depression signalled the end of the wheat boom, the role of hired hands changed dramatically. Prior to World War One, hired hands viewed themselves and were treated in the rural community as equals to their farmer employers. Many were farmers in training, informal apprentices who worked for wages so they could accumulate the capital and experience needed to secure their own free 160-acre parcels of land. In later years, as free lands were taken, hired hands increasingly faced the hkehhood of remaining waged labourers on the farms of others. They became agricultural proletarians. In this first full-length study of labour in Canadian prairie agriculture during the period of settlement and expansion, Cecilia Danysk examines the changing work and the growing rural community of the West through the eyes of the workers themselves. World War One was a catalyst in bringing into focus the conflicting nature of labour-capital relations and the divergent aims of workers and their employers. Yet, attempts at union organization were unsuccessful because most hired hands worked alone and because governments assisted farmers by stifling such attempts. The workers' greatest form of workplace control was to walk off one job and find another. Previously published by McClelland & Stewart

The basic objective of agricultural research at ICARDA is to enhance producer and consumer welfare through increasing the productivity, stability, and profitability of agriculture. Improved practices must be technically, economi cally, and socially suitable to farmer conditions. The rainfed areas of West Asia and North Africa have highly variable environmental conditions as well as complex social and economic structures. In recent years, the region has been experiencing major changes in the relative availabilities and costs of the classical factors of production: land, labor and capital. These changes have important implications for the design of new agricultural technology. On the one hand, the availability of labor may be an important factor determining the acceptability of new technology. On the other, it is important to consider the impact that technology can have on rural employment. To develop a better awareness ofthese issues and their relevance to technology development, ICARDA initiated a project on Agricultural Labor and Tech nological Change (ALTC). The first stage of the project was a review of existing information' on these issues; this review was published as a book under the title Labor and Rainfed Agriculture in West Asia and North Africa.

"This publication is part of the CUREMIS series (current and emerging issues for economic analysis and policy research) of FAO regional reviews on economic and policy aspects of food and agriculture. This volume focuses on the Latin America and the Caribbean and contains four reports on: new institutions for agricultural and rural development; the changing role of women in the rural economy; innovative policy instruments and evaluation in rural and agricultural development; and rural space and territorial dimension of development in the MERCOSUR countries (a Common Market agreement between Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay)."--FAO.