Lack of access to water for irrigation drives many men in the Ganges basin to migrate for work in the dry season. Women left behind struggle to farm and remittances are insufficient to pull families out of poverty. Could more investment in water management help?

1. Migration and the transformation of peasant
agriculture in the Ganges plains: the new frontier of
agrarian change
Fraser Sugden – IWMI Nepal

2. Background
 Out migration represents a critical transformation in the agricultural
sector throughout the majority world
• Changing intra-household division of labour
• Changed urban-rural linkages
• Changed patterns of investment (or disinvestment) on the land
 Of critical importance to note is that in the South Asian context,
despite the astronomical rise in migration, agriculture remains
critical for rural food security – emergence of a dual livelihood
strategy. People are not “leaving the land”
 We must live with migration – but there are ways in which the
outcomes can be made more equitable, particularly for those who
stay behind and remain in agriculture.

3. Kathmandu
Tibetan Autonomous
Region
Nepal
Survey sites
Darbhanga
Madhubani
MITHILANCHAL
Bihar
Janakpur
Biratnagar
ADIVASI BELT
Purnea

4. Methods
 This study is an amalgamation of multiple sources, following a
decades’ work in the plains of Nepal and Bihar.
 The primary data source is two large random surveys on agriculture
and livelihoods.
 CCAFS survey in 2013: 427 households in Rakuwari and Bhupatti
of Bihar’s Madhubani district, Thadi Jijha and Ekrahi of Nepal’s
Dhanusha district, and Bhaudaha, Jhorahat and Thalaha of Morang
district.
 SRFSI survey: 809 households in Ragunathpur and Giddha of
Dhanusha, Korahiya and Nanour of Madhubani, Dogadhinagar and
Damdaha of Bihar’s Purnea district, and Simariya and
Mahendranagar of Nepal’s Sunsari district.
 Data from interviews with 127 women farmers in Madhubani (India),
Saptari and Dhanusha (Nepal)
 51 FGDs and interviews for both studies

5. Poverty and land inequality in the
Plains of North Bihar and Nepal Tarai
 While dominance of a single zaminidari class has declined, the
relations of production remain overwhelmingly feudal in character
 The Plains of Bihar and the Nepal Tarai-Madhesh is a region with
one of the most inequitable agrarian structures in Asia
 The amalgamation of survey data from the 14 villages showed that
half the land was under tenancy
 Large farmers (>2ha) who represent just 5.5% of the sample own a
third of the land, while 55% of the rented-in land belongs to
absentee landlords, often the relics of the zamindar class.
 Marginal farmers with less than 0.5ha, tenants, part tenants and
landless labourers together constitute 70% of the population.
 Despite greater peasant mobilisation and awareness of their rights,
surplus appropriation through sharecropping, low wage labour, and
usury remains widespread.

6. 0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
40
Madhubani Purnea Dhanusha Sunsari Morang
landless labourer tenant part tenant <0.5ha 0.5-1ha 1-2ha >2ha
Agrarian structure in 14 village
study

7. Agrarian stress in the eastern Gangetic Plains
• Agrarian crisis since the 1990s
• Increasingly erratic climate
• Changing precipitation patterns
• Winter cold spells
• Early rains during wheat harvest
• Limited capacity to invest in irrigation
• Cost of pump sets unfeasible for poorer and tenant farmers
• Absentee landlordism constricts expansion of tubewells
• Limited electrification and power shortages..
• Rising cost of living, consumerism.
• Poor terms of trade for agriculture following economic liberalisation
– rising input prices, stagnant demand for commercial products
• In the context of agrarian stress, the non-farm economy is
increasingly essential for farmers to meet their subsistence
needs

8. Migration trends in North Bihar and Nepal
 Migration started in colonial times, but it only became a significant
component of the livelihood strategy in the late 1980s
 Agrarian stress combined with external changes in the labour market,
created the conditions for the migrant boom. External changes include:
• Economic liberalization in India and urban growth, particularly in the service
and construction sector
• Changing geopolitics in the Gulf states which sought a politically neutral
and flexible labour force from the 1990s onwards.

 Survey in North Bihar by Karan (2003) noted that as of 1982/3, 27.69%
of households had migrated. As of 1999/2000 this had doubled,
jumping to 48.63%.
 In 1981 Nepal census, there were 402,977 household members
classed as ‘absentee’. This increased more than fourfold to 1,921,494
by 2011.

9. Migration and accumulation of wealth
 Over 50% of households across all wealth groups had migrant
family members
 However, they type of work varies considerably according to
economic class position, as does the income.
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
Landless
labourer
Tenant,
part-tenant
land owner
with <0.5 ha
Land owner
with 0.5-1
ha
1-2ha Land owner
with >2ha
% of households having used remittance to invest in
land or agricultural equipment

10. Is migration leading to socio-economic upliftment?
 A significant proportion of migrant remittances are absorbed by non-
productive investments.
 Integral link between debt, surplus appropriation and migration
• Debt both drives migration, while migration itself often causes farmers
to fall into further debt (esp for overseas work with high upfront costs)
• In Nepal, the informal money lending sector has boomed as a result of
migration, with interest rates of 36 – 50%. Provides a new source of
income for landlords with declining holdings.
• Alongside this is an entire sector of rent-seeking institutions such as
the manpower industry.
 Migration and socio-economic breakdown
• Community institutions such as canal management committees
breaking down due to labour shortages
• Few efforts to include women in formally male domains

11. Data from Bihar and Nepal case study sites
on average % distribution of remittances
.00
5.00
10.00
15.00
20.00
25.00
30.00
35.00
40.00

12. Feminization of agriculture and ‘subsidized labour’
 Despite the boom in migration – agriculture remains critical for
those who stay behind – namely women and old people.
 Remittances only cover part of the subsistence needs
 Migrant labour has emerged in a very different context from
Industrial Revolution Europe where entire families would leave the
land, and wages would support labourers and their families – along
with en entire socio-political formation to support the working class
– emergence of the welfare state.
 In the contemporary South Asian context, migrant wages only
support the sustenance of the labourer, with some excess to meet
cash needs at home.
 Feminised agriculture, even under semi-feudal conditions, provides
food for the rest of the family, and provides sustenance to the
labourer during his leave
 In effect, feminized agriculture supports the entire low wage labour
regime of South Asia and labour receiving countries.

13. Challenges for those who stay behind
 Extremely high workload – especially for marginal and tenant
farmers who can not hire in labour
 Restricted access to government and non-government services due
to policies which have not caught up with changing demography
and gendered division of labour.
 Challenges in accessing irrigation and other key resources which
were once in the male domain.
 Economic and social isolation – particularly for newly weds (e.g.
cross border Nepal-India marriage patterns)
 There are some opportunities for gender empowerment – yet this is
often restricted to better of households with access to capital and
land

14. Ways forward
 The only long term solution will be through the development of
broad based equitable growth of domestic employment
opportunities – remittances are not a path to economic growth.
 Engage in meaningful dialogue over redistributive land reform –
providing a stronger livelihood for those who stay behind, and
making agricultural investment of remittances more feasible.
• Explore new models of land management such as collectives
 Coping with migration?
• In the immediate future, critical need for agricultural programmes to
better engage with women – the primary custodians of the land in new
ways which can help them overcome agrarian stress.
- Move beyond tokenism and engage women more actively in key decision making roles,
including the identification of gendered constraints to participation.
- Reform policies which constrain women from accessing government services – e.g.
requirements of land ownership papers for agricultural support
• Much stronger regulation of the overseas manpower industry.

15. Thank you…