Vol. 11, Special Issue 4 (2022)

Author(s):
P Vaishnavi and G Manisankar

Abstract:
Labour is one of the most principal component in agricultural system. In any agricultural system, labour is an integral part to “seed to seed” development. In recent days, agricultural sector is facing huge problem of labour scarcity and it affects the farmers and agricultural scientists to meet out the food security programme. Higher earnings in other locally accessible jobs cum seasonal nature of agricultural work are the major reasons for labour scarcity. Meanwhile, non-agricultural jobs like electrician, plumber and masonry workers get more daily wages than agricultural labors. In India, 60% of the farmers are small to medium farmers and they are not affordable to buy a large machinery for overcome the labour shortage. In this context, many small farmers leave the agriculture and went to some other locally accessible jobs. Labour scarcity is the recent and major constraint to scientists to find an alternate viable option. Keeping these points in view, this review paper is addressed to evaluate the strategies to overcome the labour scarcity in agriculture. From this review it could be concluded that, hiring of agricultural machineries, cultivation of less labour requiring crops, efficient utilization of government subsidies, precision farming and intensive use of family laborers are the viable options to overcome the labour scarcity in agriculture.