Existing national surveys, like SAS and CCPC, have limitations in capturing labour use and costs in Indian agriculture, leading to underestimated labour costs.
Author
Prachi Bansal, Assistant Professor, Jindal School of Government & Public Policy O. P. Jindal Global University, Sonipat, Haryana, India
Summary
Most national surveys, such as the NSS Employment-Unemployment Surveys and the Periodic Labour Force Surveys, discuss data on workers in agriculture. However, given the limited supply of land and a surplus of labour looking for opportunities to find work, it is critical to study labour use and labour costs in agriculture. Labour absorption or labour use is measured in terms of labour time. There are limited studies on labour use in agriculture, and the two major sources of large-scale national data on this issue are the Situation Assessment Survey (SAS) conducted by the National Statistical Office and the data collected under the Comprehensive Scheme for Cost of Cultivation of Principal Crops (CCPC) by the Ministry of Agriculture. These two datasets provide valuable insights into labour use and labour expenditure statistics, though each has certain limitations.
Taking a different approach, this paper focuses on examining the challenges and methodological issues in using these datasets to understand labour use and expenditure patterns in farming rather than presenting these estimates of labour use. Two primary issues are identified using SAS data: the absence of data on the number of labour days used in agriculture and the lack of detailed data on crop-wise expenditure on labour. However, the SAS data does give us an aggregate measure of labour expenditure (or costs) in crop cultivation. This aggregate measure is missing from the CCPC surveys, which collect detailed information on cost and labour days in agriculture, but the data are released crop-wise. Consequently, we have a situation where the SAS data provides an aggregate picture of expenditure on labour in crop cultivation, whereas the CCPC data gives us this information crop-wise. This paper shows that the expenditure on labour so estimated using the SAS grossly underestimates labour costs in agriculture compared to the CCPC data and, thus, underestimates the total costs incurred in crop cultivation. This paper highlights the necessity of improving data collection methods to obtain a more accurate and detailed understanding of labour use and expenditure in agriculture, which is critical for formulating policies for the agricultural sector.
Published in: Indian Journal of Agricultural Economics
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