Agricultural Mechanization And Child Labour In Developing Countries

Child labour in agriculture remains a global concern. Agriculture is the sector where most child labour is found. Employment of children mostly relates to farm household poverty in developing countries. This raises the question of the extent to which the modernisation of agriculture prevents the use of child labour while also leading to higher productivity. One of the central questions in this context is whether agricultural mechanisation helps limit children’s employment. Available studies have put forward opposing hypotheses, but rigorous empirical evidence is scant. The present study aims to fill some of this void by studying the evidence from comparable farm household survey data in seven developing countries, including three in Asia (India, Nepal, and Vietnam) and four in sub-Saharan Africa (Ethiopia, Ghana, Nigeria, and Tanzania). Various key findings emerge. First, many children are found to engage in productive activities in studied countries. The prevalence is particularly high in African countries, such as in Ethiopia where more than one third of children aged 5-14 years engage in farm or off-farm work. Second, while the prevalence of child labour in agriculture (i.e., when productive engagement is detrimental to schooling and child growth) is much lower (at 10% or less in seven countries), they are still sizable in absolute terms; at least 6 million children in these countries partake in agricultural work at the expense of opportunities in adulthood. Third, agricultural mechanization, reflected in farm household’s use of machinery such as tractors, significantly reduces the likelihood of use of children’s labour and increases school attendance. Fourth, the measured impacts of mechanization are only modest, however, and likely indirect, that is, dependent on the extent to which mechanization helps improve household income and on local conditions (such as quality of rural infrastructure and accessibility of education and other social services). Overall, promotion of agricultural mechanization can help prevent use of child labour. To be truly impactful, however, related support measures should be embedded in broader strategies to enable agricultural productivity growth and improve livelihoods of poor rural households.

The FAO-IFPRI study, focuses on the use of tractors because they are among the most versatile farm mechanization tools and are universal power sources for all other driven implements and equipment in agriculture, with significant potential to replace animal draught power and human power, including children’s muscle power. Tractor use is typically also the first type of machine-powered equipment in use at lower levels of agricultural development, the context where most child labour is found. Mechanization is mostly assumed to reduce child labour, as it is expected to be labour saving in general. Yet, this is not always the case, as it has also been observed that the use of tractors and other machinery could increase children’s engagement in farm activities. This may be the case if, for instance, their use allows farms to cultivate larger areas, or if it leads to shifting chores of work from hired labor to family workers, e.g. for weeding edges of farmland not reachable by machinery. Evidence has been scant thus far, but the few available studies have mostly lent greater support to the hypothesis that mechanization reduces children’s productive engagement. Most available studies have focused on specific cases and based on scant data. The new FAO-IFPRI study provides a rigorous quantitative assessment for seven developing countries in Asia (India, Nepal and Viet Nam) and sub-Saharan Africa (Ethiopia, Ghana, Nigeria and Tanzania) based on comparable farm household survey data.

The FAO-IFPRI study, of which this policy brief is a summary, focuses on the use of tractors because they are among the most versatile farm mechanization tools and are universal power sources for all other driven implements and equipment in agriculture, with significant potential to replace animal draught power and human power, including children’s muscle power. Tractor use is typically also the first type of machine-powered equipment in use at lower levels of agricultural development, the context where most child labour is found. Mechanization is mostly assumed to reduce child labour, as it is expected to be labour saving in general. Yet, this is not always the case, as it has also been observed that the use of tractors and other machinery could increase children’s engagement in farm activities. This may be the case if, for instance, their use allows farms to cultivate larger areas, or if it leads to shifting chores of work from hired labor to family workers, e.g. for weeding edges of farmland not reachable by machinery. Evidence has been scant thus far, but the few available studies have mostly lent greater support to the hypothesis that mechanization reduces children’s productive engagement. Most available studies have focused on specific cases and based on scant data. The new FAO-IFPRI study provides a rigorous quantitative assessment for seven developing countries in Asia (India, Nepal and Viet Nam) and sub-Saharan Africa (Ethiopia, Ghana, Nigeria and Tanzania) based on comparable farm household survey data.

Contents: Child Labour Targeting the Intolerable, Stop Child Labour, Child Labour in Weaving Industry, Helping your Child Learn, Children s Health and the Environment, Opening Markets for Agriculture, The Future of Agricultural Trade, The Uruguay Round Agreement on Agriculture, The Uruguay Round and Agricultural Reforms, Export Subsidies: A Distortion to Free Trade in Agriculture, WTO Agricultural Negotiations Completing the Task, Developing Countries and the WTO Agricultural Negotiations, Population Growth and Cropland, Development of Sericulture, Controlling the Global Tobacco Epidemic, Land Tenure, Can Economic Growth Reduce Poverty?, The Dynamics of Rural Poverty in India, Rural Poverty in India and Development as a Policy Challenge, Trade and Labour Standards, Challenging Traditional Economic Growth, End of Controversy on Large Dams?, A Breakthrough in the Evolution of Large Dams?, Fighting for Equality on All Fronts, Crisis Prevention, The Future of Work, Population Growth and Income, For a Fair Sharing of Time, Development: The People Know Best, An Agenda for Change, Do Men Matter?, Social Development: The Way Forward, Gender-based Violence.

The purpose of the FAO’s framework is to guide the Organization and its personnel in the integration of measures addressing child labour within FAO’s typical work, programmes and initiatives at global, regional and country levels. It aims to enhance compliance with organization’s operational standards, and strengthen coherence and synergies across the Organization and with partners. The FAO framework is primarily targeted at FAO as an organization, including all personnel in all geographic locations. But the framework is also relevant for FAO’s governing bodies and Member States, and provides guidance and a basis for collaboration with development partners. The framework is also to be used as a key guidance to assess and monitor compliance with FAO’s environmental and social standards addressing prevention and reduction of child labour in FAO’s programming.

This guide will serve as a significant tool for practitioners in Lebanon and the Arab countries who are attending to the issue of child labour in agriculture. Moreover, it represents a pillar for present and continuous collaborative efforts between two sister UN agencies (the ILO and FAO) and their national counterparts, the Ministry of Labour and the Ministry of Agriculture. It is within the framework of the Global Understanding between ILO and FAO to combat child labour in agriculture that this guide has been developed. Specifically, this guide aims at raising awareness among practitioners in the field of agricultural labour of the seriousness of the problem of child labour and its implications, and to sensitize all stakeholders involved in agricultural work to the various possibilities for limiting its severity. In particular, the guide was designed as a reference manual for trainers of trainers conducting workshops in the field of child labour in agriculture in Lebanon, but may also be used by all stakeholders and practitioners in the field of agriculture.

Technological change in agriculture, employment and over-all development strategy; Mechanisation and employed in East African agriculture; Agricultural mechanisation and employment in Latin American; Employment and technological change in Philippine agriculture; Mechanisation of agriculture in India and Sri Lanka (Ceylon); Tractor mechanisation and rural development in Pakistan; Agricultural mechanisation and employment in Southern Italy.