SERICUL TURE AND THE PROCESS OF CHANGE - Institute for ...

visits are undertaken only if there are any of their relatives still left in
the village. In some of the marginal farmer categories, especially those
who own only rain-fed lands, the work force, especially the youngsters
stick to Bangalore, leaving the older persons to manage the lands. A few
do continue to visit the villages but only during the peak seasons. Even
in small land-holding families, with least irrigation, if there are two adult
males in the family, one would have migrated to Bangalore, leaving the
other in the village to take care of the lands.
During the seventies and early eighties, the wage structure had
been quite low. In the late eighties, when things became bener, there had
not been much labour left. With more initiation of cash crops and with
the re-generation of sericulture in a large scale by more farmers, the
situation led to a total transformation of the labour scenario. There had
been changes in the wage structure as well as in the nature of engaging
the labourers. The labourers started enjoying a greater bargaining power.
New labour types like the task contract system, started emerging. With
this, labour strategies and management has started assuming high
significance in sericulture.
Labour absorption in Sericulture and Other Crops: Table 5.1
provides the labour absorption in different crops including sericulture by
sex and labour status l6 . As the table shows, the agricultural
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The labour absorption has been calculated from the data prOVIded by about
twenty-five per cent of the cultivators of each crop. across different land
categories. From this, the average labour absorptlOn m one acre of operated
area for each crop was derived. This was multiplied by the total operated area
for each crop, to arrive at the cumulative labour absorption. The prevallmg
wage rate had been used in the conversion of the contract labour Ulto person
days.
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