Rural people turning to casual labour—Report
The number of working-class adults who employed exclusively traditional farm work has dropped 24 percentage points from 51 percent in 2010 to around 27 percent in 2019, a policy note from the International Food Policy Research Institute (Ifpri) shows.
A policy paper from Ifpri, titled ‘Can Urban Growth Reduce Rural Underemployment’ noted that local farmers in rural communities have started combining their work with other forms of employment such as off-farm enterprises, casual labour and labour for others in long-term wage employment for others.
According to Ifpri, combining traditional farm work with casual labour was the most popular livelihood choice for most working-age adults living in rural communities at 31 percent.
However, the report notes that most of the workers who have transitioned from traditional farm work to off-farm enterprise and casual labour are less likely to suffer underemployment, but cautioned that casual labourers are exposed to poor working conditions and exploitation.
It reads: “Unfortunately, ganyu typically comes with low pay and low security. It pays less than a third of earnings in household off-farm enterprises or wage employment.
“People who work in ganyu are twice disadvantaged in that they do not manage to have full-working schedules, while at the same time suffering from low pay per hour worked.”
To address the challenges, the report recommends “raising human capital and productivity of the continually growing pool of rural workers, while simultaneously raising rural incomes to increase demand for goods and services that can be produced in rural markets”.
“Secondly, the labour market linkages between urban and rural areas operate primarily through the longer-established urban areas. Growth in Malawi’s newer emerging urban centres, while substantial, has not spilled over to rural labour markets yet.”
Reacting to the development, economics researcher and consultant Exley Silumbu said the prevailing employment trends are a symptom of the country’s failure to develop productive sectors such as mining and manufacturing that have the potential to absorb the surplus labour from the rural communities.
In a telephone interview, he said: “Our agricultural systems are becoming more mechanised which is not labour intensive and, as a result, less labour extensive. But there manufacturing and mining sectors have not developed fast enough to absorb the excess labour created by mechanisation.”
He, thus, urged the government to implement policies that would attract foreign direct investment to catalyse growth in the productive sectors.
In a separate interview, economics analyst Bond Mtembezeka said the farmers may have transitioned from exclusively farming to combining with casual labour because traditional farming is not as lucrative as it was.
In a WhatsApp response, he said: “The cost of imports [fertiliser, seed and pesticides] has gone up. And there have been exogenous shocks from tropical cyclones and droughts. Farmers are not making as much as they would from farming so they are turning to casual labour to supplement their incomes.”
