Consequences of Agricultural Labour Scarcity on Cropping Pattern Dynamics in Tamil Nadu, India

Cropping Pattern is a complicated process that is influenced by a variety of socioeconomic, agro-climatic, and ecological factors. Even though India has the second-largest manpower in the world, all sectors of the economy have been affected by the scarcity of labour, the impact being felt more in the agricultural sector. The acute scarcity of agricultural labourers in the India has resulted in crop establishment delays, poor crop growth, no or late weeding, inappropriate fertilizer use, insufficient irrigation water, and other factors that have pushed Indian farmers to switching from farming to non-farm occupations. The present study was undertaken to analyze the dynamics of cropping patterns in the state, Tamil Nadu. Tiruchirappalli and Pudukkottai districts were selected purposively to represent the high and low crop diversity cropping system respectively. The study was based on both primary and secondary data for the period of 10 years from 2010-11 to 2019-20 to analyze the decadal change. Tabular Analysis, Compound Growth Rate and Markov chain analysis were used to analyze the data. The study results revealed that there are marginal changes in cropping pattern, increases towards the commercial crops such as sugarcane, tapioca, cotton and banana. The total fallow land share has increased continuously leaving a lesser area for cropping. The reported dynamics change the agricultural productivity and increased mechanization, which might be due to growth in the labour scarcity. The results showed that farmers were shifting from high labour intensive crops such as paddy, sugarcane, cotton to low labor-intensive crops such as groundnut, black gram over the years. Due to the higher requirement of laborers for cultivating crops, crop retention probability was lesser which means the crops have become less and less stable. It is therefore recommended that the district, state, and country's agricultural extension systems must be geared up to curbing the shifting farmers away from traditional farming practices and educate them on the use of available labor-saving equipment and technology.