Agriculture Diversification: Horticulture, Organic Farming & Employment

• It is an important sector for diversification in agriculture. Horticulture crops include fruits, vegetables, flowers, and spices.
• It provides food, nutrition, and employment opportunities.
• India has emerged as a world leader in producing mangoes, bananas, coconuts, cashews, and various other spices.
• There has been a rise in the income level of farmers involved in horticulture.
• Horticulture has given employment opportunities to women in rural areas.
• The period of 1991-2003 was the period of the Golden Revolution because, during this period, planned investment in horticulture increased production.
• The area under cultivation in horticulture was more as compared to the area under pulses, which reduces the supply of pulses and increases prices for essential goods.

• It is the traditional occupation in rural areas other than farming.
• It involves activities like spinning, weaving, dyeing, and bleaching.
• These industries are affected when large-scale textile industries are set up.
• Workers have started making other things such as soaps, dolls, and engaging in bee-keeping, which has resulted in the generation of extra income.
• It has given employment opportunities to women.

• Organic farming is done by using organic inputs such as animal manures and compost for cultivation.
• It reduces the use of chemical fertilizers, insecticides, and pesticides, providing food grains free from chemicals and toxic pesticides.
• It focuses on improving soil fertility along with an eco-friendly environment. Organic farming is a system that avoids or largely excludes the use of synthetic inputs (such as fertilizers, pesticides, hormones, and feed additives) and, to the maximum extent feasible, relies upon crop rotations, crop residues, animal manures, off-farm organic waste, mineral-grade rock additives, and biological systems of nutrient mobilization and plant protection.

Discard the Use of Non-Renewable Resources

• Conventional farming relies heavily on chemical fertilizers and pesticides, and these chemicals are synthetic chemicals made from petroleum.
• Organic farming does not use such chemicals and hence avoids the usage of non-renewable resources.

Environmentally Friendly

• These fertilizers pollute the groundwater, and hence organic farming is eco-friendly.

Sustains Soil Fertility

• Conventional farming such as fertilizers erodes soil fertility, whereas organic farming sustains soil fertility.
• Soil fertility is increased by the use of animal manures and compost.

Healthier and Tastier Food

• Organically grown food has more nutritional value than food grown by chemical farming. So, organic farming provides us with healthy foods.
• Present-day trends show that demand for organic food is rising as it is more nutritious.

Inexpensive

• Organic farming acts as a substitute for conventional farming.

• The yields from organic farming are less than modern agricultural farming in the initial years. Therefore, small and marginal farmers may find it difficult to adapt to large-scale production.
• Organic produce may also have more blemishes and a shorter shelf life than sprayed produce.
• Choice in the production of off-season crops is quite limited in organic farming.
• Marketing organically produced goods is another major problem.

• Many experts and well-informed farmers are unsure whether all the nutrients with the required quantities can be made available by the organic materials.
• Even if this problem can be surmounted, they are of the view that the available organic matter is simply not enough to meet the requirements.

• Non-perishable grains can be grown anywhere and transported to any location, but this is not the case with fruits and vegetables.
• It should be produced locally, for which there should be willing companies, aggregators, and farmers around that particular area from where the demand is coming.

• It is almost obvious that due to the extreme care taken to go along with organic farming, the results would be kept at a high price.
• The items sold in the market are half the price of non-organic products.
• So, we can say that organic items are expensive, and not every consumer is willing to pay the price for it.

• Most large organic farms still operate in an industrialized agriculture style, including industrial transportation of the food from field to plate.

• All those persons who are engaged in various economic activities, in whatever capacity – high or low – and hence contribute to the gross national product are workers.
• Even if some of them temporarily abstain from work due to illness, injury, or other physical disability, bad weather, festivals, social, or religious functions, they are also workers.
• Workers also include all those who help the main workers in these activities.
• We generally think of only those who are paid by an employer for their work as workers. This is not so. Those who are self-employed are also workers.

• The nature of employment in India varies. Some get employment throughout the year; some others get employed for only a few months in a year.
• Many workers do not get fair wages for their work.
• While estimating the number of workers, all those who are engaged in economic activities are in employment.

• It is defined as the percentage of the population that is actively contributing to the production of goods and services of a country.
• It is an indicator used for analyzing the employment situation in the country.
• If the ratio is higher, it means that the engagement of people is greater.
• If the ratio of a country is medium or low, it means that a very high proportion of its population is not involved directly in economic activities.

• Unemployment refers to a situation where people are willing to work at the existing wage rate, but they are not getting work.

• All those people who are engaged in economic activities according to their capacity are known as workers.

Self-Employed Workers

• These are those workers who use their own resources such as land, labor, and capital.
• They are engaged in their own business and profession.
• They are not employed by others, whereas they provide jobs to themselves.

Hired Workers

• These are those workers who are employed by others and are paid wages or salaries in return.
• This is also known as wage employment.
• They receive salaries for rendering their services.

Casual Workers

• These are not hired on a permanent/regular basis by employers.
• These do not get social security benefits such as pensions or gratuity.
• These are daily wagers, e.g., construction workers.

Regular Workers

• These are hired on a permanent/regular basis by their employers.
• These get social security benefits such as pensions.

• The primary sector includes sectors that involve natural resources such as agriculture, forestry, and mining.
• As per 2015-16, approximately 46% of the workforce is employed in the primary sector.
• A large workforce depends on primary activities to make a living. But the productivity and wage rate are less, which shows the backwardness of the primary sector.

• The secondary sector includes manufacturing and construction.
• Only 21.8% of the workforce is employed in the secondary sector, which shows that the industrial sector is unable to generate employment opportunities.

Male Workforce

• The male workforce engaged in the primary sector is only 45%, in the secondary sector -19%, and in the tertiary sector -25%.
• The male workforce can migrate from one area to another area; therefore, employment in the tertiary sector is greater compared to the secondary sector.

Female Workforce

• The female workforce engaged in the primary sector is 57%, whereas in the secondary sector -15% and in the tertiary sector 19%.
• More of the female workforce is engaged in the primary sector because women are unwilling to migrate for outside jobs.
• They prefer to work at their place in order to generate extra income for their family.

• It includes the service sector, that is, trade, transport, and storage.
• It provides 32% of employment opportunities, which is more than the industrial sector.
• It is a major source of employment for people in urban areas as against employment in rural areas.

• It is the situation where the percentage of the workforce in the formal sector tends to decline, and that in the informal sector tends to rise.
• It is classified into the Formal sector and the Informal sector.

• All the public or private sector establishments that employ 10 or more workers are called the formal sector.
• These workers are entitled to social security benefits such as provident funds and gratuity.
• These workers form trade unions and have strong bargaining power, as their rights are protected by various labor laws.

• All the private sector organizations that hire less than 10 employees together comprise the informal sector.
• These workers are not entitled to social security benefits such as provident funds and gratuity.
• These workers cannot form trade unions and have weak bargaining power as their rights are protected by various labor laws.
• This sector includes millions of farmers, agricultural laborers, and owners of small enterprises.

Rural Unemployment

• The degree of unemployment is more in rural areas compared to urban areas. More of the workforce is engaged in the primary sector. This sector leads to two types of unemployment:

• It is a type of hidden unemployment that arises in the agriculture sector.
• It is a situation when more than the actually required number of workers are engaged in work. If some of them are withdrawn from the job, the total output will remain unaffected.
• When all those who apparently seem to be working in agriculture are not able to contribute individually to total output, they would be counted in disguised unemployment.
• Lack of job opportunities outside agriculture compels people to work on their family farm, which causes unemployment.

• This is another common form of unemployment that prevails in rural areas. It occurs because agriculture is seasonal in nature. The farmers are unemployed in the off-season.
• It depends upon the method of cultivation. If a farmer cultivates only one crop in a year, then he remains unemployed for 6-7 months.
• This unemployment occurs in many other seasonal activities too, such as brick making, sugarcane crushing, and ice cream making.

Slow Economic Growth

• The slow growth rate of the economy is an important factor that has led to unemployment.
• The slow growth rate is unable to generate enough job opportunities to absorb the available labor force.
• The actual growth rate of the economy is always less than the required growth rate, and as a result, unemployment arises.

Rapid Growth of Population

• A high rate of population growth in India is responsible for the unemployment in the country.
• A high growth rate of population keeps adding more persons every year to the existing labor force who are seeking employment.
• The increase in population is at a faster rate than the increase in the number of job opportunities.

Agriculture – A Seasonal Occupation

• There is heavy pressure of population on agriculture, which offers seasonal employment.
• Because of which farmers remain idle for 3-4 months in a year.

Low Savings and Investment

• There is a lack of investment in the country. Lack of investment implies low production of goods and services, as a result of which there are fewer employment opportunities.

Economic Consequences

• Non-utilization of manpower: As people are unemployed, manpower resources are not fully utilized, which results in the wastage of resources.
• Loss of output: As human resources are not utilized to the full, there will be a loss of output and income to the extent of unemployment.
• Low capital formation: It is because of the low level of income that people are not able to save and invest sufficiently, causing a decline in capital formation.
• Low productivity: Because of disguised unemployment or cyclical unemployment, the productivity is less.

Social Consequences

• Low quality of life: Unemployment means a state of low quality of life as the person is not earning and is not able to maintain a dignified standard of living.
• Greater inequality: Unemployment corresponds to inequality as some are working and earning, and some are not. It widens the gap between haves and have-nots.

Increase in Production

• If employment has to be increased, it is necessary to increase the output in different sectors, that is, industrial and agricultural.
• The greater the production, the greater is the demand for labor.

High Rate of Capital Formation

• The rate of capital formation has been increased by increasing the level of investment and savings.
• When the investment rate increases, then production capacity also increases, creating more employment opportunities.

Help to Self-Employed Persons

• There should be encouragement to self-employed workers in rural and urban areas to set up their work areas.
• In rural areas, the government should provide short-term, middle-term, or long-term loans to farmers to buy seeds, equipment, and manure.