Agricultural Workers as part of Population in India

There are two types of farm workers in India viz. Cultivators and Agricultural Labourers. Cultivators are those who work in their own land; Agricultural Labourers are those who work on the land of others for wages. An agricultural labourer has no right of lease or contract on land on which she/he works. Now, let’s analyze the trend in these two types of farm workers in India.

The above table shows that:

• Agricultural workers as fraction of India’s total population have decreased only marginally since in 1951. While 27% of the people were agricultural workers in 1951; their fraction stands 21.7% as per Census 2011 data.
• Out of the total agricultural workers; the fraction of cultivators has gradually gone down from 72% in 1951 to 45.1% in 2011. On the other hand, the fraction of Agricultural Labourers has gradually gone up from 28% in 1951 to 54.8% in 2011.

This hints towards a disturbing trend that more and more people of India are losing their land and they are either becoming farm labours or moving to other sectors. Since most of these people are either low skilled or unskilled, they have not many options but to become labourers either under private / unorganized sector or under government schemes such as MGNREGA. That is where; skill development gets importance as one of the biggest challenges in our country.

The above data also demystifies the false notion that half of India’s population is involved in agriculture.

Agricultural Workers as part of Labour Force

In our country, 54 per cent of total workers and 42% of rural workers is still part of the agriculture sector but they are not all farmers or cultivators. They include those who are either wage labours in others’ field or those engaged in related activities such as fisheries etc.