Farm Price Volatility and Its Impact On Rural Labour Market Under Neoliberal Regime: A Study Of Rubber Tapping Labourers In Kerala

Abstract

Economic liberalisation coupled with de-protection policies in the domestic market transformed the stable and remunerative home market for primary commodities into a volatile one characterised by wild and frequent price fluctuations shattering the staying capacity of small and marginal farmers ,n India. Persistence of a volatile price for a longer period leaves its devastating consequences in respective labour markets too. Natural Rubber (NR) production sector and its labour market in Kera/a, where more than 90 per cent of NR production is concentrated, is not an exception to it. This article analyses the impact of neo-liberal economic policies on the rural labour market for tapping labourers and their response to a volatile NR price scenario in the second half of the 1990s in Kera/a. The study is based on a field survey of tapping labourers and their farmers selected from five important rubber growing regions in Central Kera/a during the year 2000. The study observed that NR production sector could attract labourers because of regular employment, piece wage system, pecuniary benefits offered to labourers including interest free wage advances until the price crash for NR in the second half of 1990s. As the price of NR declined, wage rate for tapping labourers too failed to keep pace with the wage rate for general agricultural labourers in four out of five sample regions.Moreover, tapping labourers reported that farmers had developed a lukewarm attitude towards rubber tapping under a scenario of continuous fall in NRprice in the second half of the 1990s. ltmanifested on a fall in the number of tapping days and the number of trees available per labourer for tapping. Further, decline in net in.come of farmers forced them to stop interest free wage advances and other pecuniary benefits to the tapping labourers. Consequent upon those changes in the sector, the withdrawal of the main-tapper from the labour market was followed by the retreat of tapping assistance as well. As Natural Rubber production is a highly labour intensive crop particularly in its harvesting phase extending for about 20 years, labour shortage would prove to be detrimental to the very existence of the sector. The study concludes that the volatile price scenar,o for NR, if persists for a long period, should certainly lead to the withdrawal of master tappers from the labour market. Further, the neo-liberal economic policies shall disintegrate the petty producers in a myriad of ways and a volatile price for primary commodities is one of the widely used and histor,- cally proven tools to realise the objective.