Nature of Conflicts, Tensions and Exploitation in Sharecropping in Rural Sindh

This paper explains the causes of conflicts and tensions in sharecropping relationships, the nature and level of exploitation. It explains the immediate as well as root causes of conflicts that emerge between sharecroppers and landlords. Life-world of peasants of Sindh has been explored at village, sub-regional and regional level. It was found that the historical systemic structures of exploitation still exist in its refined form in peasant life-world. Peasant life within village and among village peasants is relatively peaceful. Conflicts emerge or take serious turn when outside systemic agents get involved in issues related to sharecropper and landlord. Historically property rights given to big landlords and feudal lords by imperialistic forces while snatching the indigenous right of peasants to self-cultivation, is the root cause that has spawned several sub-systemic pathologies in the life-world of peasants. Absentee landlordism, Kamdaari system, debt bondage, social bondage, system of Kann, landlessness, adulterated hybrid seeds, and issues of Sanad are some of the sub-systemic evils that have emerged over the years. All such sub-systemic structures put bigger and influential landlords into strategic advantage over the sharecroppers, particularly landless peasants;the imbalance that perpetuates “permanent liminality” suppresses reciprocal dialogues and discourages mutual negotiations. Outside systemic factors like SHO-Landlord nexus or Feudal-Police-Tapedar troika play central role in conflict creation and exacerbation in landlord-sharecropper relationship leading to bloody conflicts, caste wars, tribal feuds and honor-killings, thus, further differentiating and alienating life-world and the system rural Sindh.

Analysis of Labour-Use Patterns among Small-Holder Cocoa Farmers in South Western Nigeria

Labour is generally in short supply in peasant production particularly in the rural areas in Nigeria. There is also an unpredictable pattern of use of labour in cocoa farms. This has a negative implication on the level and quality of farm output among small holder farmers. The study investigated the effects of labour use patterns on productivity of cocoa farms in south western Nigeria. Multi-stage random sampling technique was used to select the respondents and the data were analyzed with the use of descriptive statistics and stochastic efficiency frontier function. Many farms （80%） were less than 5 hectares in size and sharecropping was the most dominant of the labour types on the farms. Adult male labour constituted about 69% of the total labour- use on the plantations and the majority of the labour was involved in the application of agrochemicals and harvesting of cocoa pods. The quantity of harvested cocoa beans, size of cleared understoreys and quantity of applied agrochemicals significantly affected （at 5% level） the labour-use efficiency in cocoa plantations. Poor remunerations often discourage prospective farm labour from participating in cocoa production. Better farm labour supply level could be achieved if the remuneration for farm labour is handsomely increased.