Socio-economic, Environmental and Health Aspects of Farm Workers Engaged in Mango Plantations

A cross-sectional survey of 489 male subjects in the age group 15 to 65 years engageddirectly or indirectly in mango cultivation along with 208 control subjects was carried out to find their socio-economic, environmental and health conditions. The conditions like high illiteracy rate (49.5%), poverty (PCI less than Rs 100 per month, 52.2%), poor housing (mud houses, 66.7%) unsafe water supply (78.6%) were prevailing in the surveyed population. The high respiratory morbidity may be attributed to high prevalence of smoking andprolonged inhalation of organic dusts during farming operation associated with illiteracyand poor socio-economic status. Gastrointestinal disorders were related to poor hygienic conditions, smoking and consumption of contaminated water. The symptoms pertaining to CNS, skin and eyes were found to be associated with exposure to pesticides

＂Marikana Has Come to the Farms!!!＂： An Analysis of the Socio-Economic Impact of the November 2012-January 2013 Farm Workers＇ Strike in the Western Cape

In August 2012 a bloody strike broke out at the Marikana platinum mine, close to Rustenburg in the Northwest Province. The strike, involving 3,000 African miners, became violent and police opened fire and killed 34 people. The issue of minimum wages and union recognition, inter alia, were underlying causes of this strike. The much televised Marikana strike had a knock-on effect and a few months later a widespread strike broke out among workers in the agricultural sector of the Western Cape. Large-scale destruction of property and crop damage took place on farms reaching levels of militancy never previously encountered in this sector. As in the case of the Marikana strike the root causes of the strike action in the Western Cape seemed to be the question of minimum wages, and, to a lesser extent, union recognition and other social issues involving political undertones. This article explores the socio-economic causes of the strike and its ramifications for labour and agriculture in the province.

Agricultural land use intensity study in Taibus Banner, and its determinants： a case Inner Mongolia, China

Based on rural household survey data from Taibus Banner, in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, China, this study separately categorizes agricul- tural land use intensity into labor intensity, capital intensity, the intensity of labor-saving inputs, and the intensity of yield-increasing inputs, and then analyzes their determinants at the household level. The findings reveal that within the study area： （1） labor intensity is higher and capital intensity is lower than in the major grain-producing and economically developed areas of eastern and central China; （2） the most widely planted crops are those with the lowest labor intensity （oats） and capital intensity （benne）; （3） there are marked differences in agricultural land use intensity among households; a major factor affecting land use decision-making is the reduced need for labor intensity for those households with high opportunity costs, such as those with income earned from non-farming activities which alleviates financial constraints and allows for increased capital intensity. As a result, these households invest more in labor-saving inputs; （4） households with a larger number of workers will allocate adequate time to manage their land and thus they will not necessarily invest more in labor-saving inputs. Those households with more land to manage tend to adopt an extensive cultivation strategy. Total income has a positive impact on capital intensity and a negative impact on labor intensity. House- holds that derive a higher proportion of their total income through farming are more reliant upon agriculture, which necessitates significant labor and yield-increasing inputs. Finally, the authors contend that policy makers should clearly recognize the impacts of non-farming employment on agricultural land use intensity. In order to ensure long- term food security and sustainable agricultural develop-ment in China, income streams from both farming and non- farming employment should be balanced.