Agriculture

Although the modern economy is largely dependent on industrialisation, agriculture remains the main driving force for the economy of Bangladesh. The economy of Bangladesh stands on 4 pillars namely agriculture production, national revenue income, export earnings, and remittance by migrant workers. Agriculture has been functioning in Bangladesh for a long as a catalyst for sustainable development and growth of the country. It is the largest employment sector in Bangladesh. As of 2019, it employs 37.75 % of the total labour force and comprises 12.68 of the country’s GDP.

The performance of this sector has an overwhelming impact on major macroeconomic objectives like employment generation, poverty alleviation, human resources development, and food security. The scope of modern agriculture has been widened significantly although agriculture used to be originally defined as the cultivation of land for producing crops only, nowadays, any applied activity through proper utilization of natural resources which relates to the production, development, preservation, processing, marketing, and extension of not only crops but also other agricultural commodities such as fish,meat, eggs, forest products, etc. is universally accepted within the purview of agriculture. According to the above definition, crop production, animal husbandry, fisheries, forestry, etc. are integral components of agriculture. But, crops undoubtedly constitute the largest and most important sector of Bangladesh agriculture. In Bangladesh, it is possible to reduce rural poverty and raise the living standard of common people by establishing agriculture as a profitable sector. It is, therefore, necessary to reorganise and develop the agricultural production system into a more dynamic and commercially profitable sector.

The socio-economic condition of agriculture labours in Bangladesh is not up to the mark. They lead their lives & livelihood through selling labour, cultivating land on a shared basis/ lease. Very often they do not receive fair wages and a fair share of produced crops. Even they do not receive the fair price of crops also. No social security scheme for them. Agricultural labours are amongst the poorest people in rural areas. Their jobs are often temporary, wages are low and working conditions can be very hazardous. More and more women are in waged agricultural jobs, but despite their numbers, they are generally “invisible” to governments, donors, and international institutions. Everything is included in National Agriculture Policy for the development of the agriculture sector except labour issues. It is difficult to say that the development of the agriculture sector means labour rights are also protected. To secure the rights of agriculture labour require adequate legal arrangement & assistance. One of the specific characteristics of the agricultural sector is the lack of clear-cut distinctions between different categories of workers, farmers, tenants, and sharecroppers. Besides, there is a wide range of land ownership patterns and methods of cultivation related to the livelihoods of agriculture workers. Consequently, there are numerous types of labour relations and different forms of labour force participation are in practice in agriculture. A single farmer may be grouped in more than one category and many smallholders supplement their subsistence farming income with wages earned by working on medium and large farms holdings during harvesting periods.

Agriculture Labourers are facing a series of problems which is mostly interlinked and multidimensional. Such as low voice in society, no fixed working hours, no wage structure, wage discrimination between male and female labour, selling advanced labour, exploitation by medieval & creditor, no leave facility (earn, festival, sick), no maternity benefit, lack of occupational safety & health protection, natural calamity, absence of social security programmes, no legal recognition as labour, no compensation, no profit-sharing system and absence of union & CBA right. The agriculture sector in Bangladesh is presently suffering from an acute decent work deficit. The basic characteristics of the informal sector of Bangladesh are no policy and legal framework; absence of employer-employee relationship; poor wage; long working hours; high occupational safety and health risks; no social protection/safety-net; and lack of fundamental rights of the workers at workplaces, low organising capacity, and initiatives by trade unions, etc.

There is a need for integrated organising initiative and policy advocacy actions for having special policy measures and legal framework of protecting workplace rights and minimum social protection measures for workers at agriculture sector of Bangladesh and building capacity of national trade union centres in the area of organising them under the umbrella of union through different strategic approaches which is one of the key strategic approaches of BLF.