Contract Farming in India: Impacts on Women and Child Workers

Abstract

"Globalisation and liberalisation are likely to have the greatest impact on the rural poor through their influence on the agricultural sector, terms of trade, availability and cost of inputs, and new investments in the agribusiness sector. Technological progress in farming can help the rural poor by raising farm productivity, lowering food prices, increasing employment, and reducing farming risk. But the role and influence of multinational corporations (MNCs) in food production and trade will, as an institutional mechanism, determine the exact impact of globalisation on the rural poor, who are mostly from the labouring classes. Contract farming (described below) promotes participation of domestic firms and MNCs in farming, and is seen as the ‘new investment’ aspect of globalisation (Ramamurthy, 2000; Killick, 2001). Under contract farming, landowners or tenants have contracts with agribusiness marketing and/or processing firms, who specify prices, timing, quality and quantity/acreage of the produce to be delivered."