Rural Production & Livelihoods (MRM 10-12)

Session-5

Critical Livelihood challenges faced by Poor

Presentation by Ashok Kumar Gupta

Case-1

• A girl migrated 100 km for harvesting wheat crop.

• She was offered two options for wages:1. Rs. 2500/- cash

2. Four quintals of Jowar + bus fare to her home.

As per your view, Which offer she could have accepted &

WHY???

Case-2• One bullock of a tribal farmer in rainfed region

has died prior to land preparation season for Maize crop in Kharif season.

• Tribal farmer is having Rs.6000/- cash with him. He had two choices to use the money:

1. He can buy a bullock costing Rs.6000/-

2. He can buy seed & fertilizer inputs for growing maize crop

As per your view, Which offer she could have accepted &

WHY???

The Vision

“There are those who enter the world in such poverty that they are deprived of both the means and the motivation to improve their lot. Unless they can be touched with the spark which ignites the spirit of individual enterprise and determination, they will only sink into apathy, degradation and despair. It is for us, who are more fortunate, to provide that spark.”

Poverty

• multidimensional deprivation or

• unacceptable deprivation

Poverty• Income poverty: deprivation of a minimum level

of income & consumption expenditure.• Basic needs poverty: deprivation of basic needs

such as food & nutrition, water supply, housing, education, etc.

• Human poverty: absence of basic capabilities and deprivation of basic choices and opportunities in life.

• Social poverty: Marginalization and lack of integration of the poor with the mainstream of development.

Defining the poor

Economic poverty• Absolute poor: defined by the poverty line (BPL),

may be less or more in different districts• Relative poverty: Who are the poor in every

village? which are the poorer regions, villages in our area?

• The concept of relative poverty at the HH/village level, absolute poverty in choosing the region/state

Defining Poverty

• Robert Chamber states that poverty is a concept used by rich to describe people they consider poor.

• According to an expert group of Planning Commission, poverty line in rural areas are drawn with an intake of 2400 calories in rural areas and 2100 calories in urban areas. If the person is unable to get that minimum level of calories is considered as being below poverty line.

• The World Bank estimates that 456 million Indians (41.6% of the total Indian population) now live under the global poverty line of US$1.25 per day (PPP).

Amartya Sen

• Agrees poverty in the form of hunger and starvation.

• In his vision, a specific, yet context-related, form of deprivation.

So

Poverty is deprivation of capabilities to lead a valued and valuable life.

Poverty definition in 2011

• The Planning Commission has adopted the Tendulkar committee’s methodology for poverty estimation, which includes spending on education and health, besides food, taking the number of the country’s poor to a whopping 37.2%, from 27.5% estimated earlier.

Who are the poor?

• Social poverty• Communities who are not considered inferior, do

not have equal access to services, assets as others.

• Dalits (and sub-castes within dalits), tribals, minorities (especially in communally sensitive times/areas), and above all, women, widows.

• Low self-esteem, confidence, ability to access benefits/resources from external agencies

Who are the poor?

• Basic needs poverty: access to safe drinking water, fodder, fuel ,education and health support; most rural areas

• Human capacity poverty: lack of skills, access to information,etc most rural areas

Who are the poor?

The rural poor

• Small and marginal Farmers

• Agricultural Labourers

• Artisans

• Non-farm Labourers, urban migrants

Characteristics of the poor

• The poor are largely invisible (even more than women)

• They stay at the margins in habitations (outside the village)

• Migrate seasonally and during day-time

• Do not normally attend gram sabhas

• Are usually exploited within the village; do not speak out in common meetings

Characteristics of the poor

• Poor reduce risk by diversified sources of income

• There is little in common between poor within a village (except poverty)– Marginal farmers/Labourers– Artisans– Widows– Disabled/chronically ill

NRM & Poor

• NRM focused only• Only through VI; less inclusion of landless

poor in the VI because key activities of VI were around land development and agriculture

• Priority to VI members only for distributing programme benefits; excluding landless except for labour work.

NRM and poor

• Great impact on poor with some land and also labour rates where high irrigation/income growth

• Increased opportunities and self-esteem with VI’s.• Many poor do not have any land or marginal land

ownership• Natural resource management approaches which focus

on land improvement may not be effective for this segment

• Need an approach which looks at livelihood options for them; skill development, animal husbandry etc

Moving up from poverty

• Spending more time in interacting with poor households

• State interventions; NREGA,SGSY

• Targeted approach; MED, differential subsidy

• Identification and support for activities which are viable and provide income flows with less risk

Preventing the fall

• Understanding what pushes non-poor to become poor ;drought, ill-health, loss of assets, high social costs,indebtedness

• And interventions which prevent this; insurance, better water and food, savings, social reform, bank linkages

Concept-2

• Only growth approach ,based on trickle-down theory, does not always work as vested interests, social barriers, elitism prevent this and capture all benefits

• However, only distribution also does not work as in poor regions; all that is achieved is everyone gets less

• Need a combination of both; or link the poor to growth areas (plate to plough)

Fundamental changes required

• Resource allocation rather than only development.

• More focus also on private good (targeted to poorest) rather than only on public goods.

• From group based targeting to individual household targeting.

• From savings promotion for debt reduction to credit provision for increasing the ability to save.

10 - 15 %

Rich Households

Upper income HH

25% Middle income households

35%

Upper income poor

BPL

Middle income poor Economically Active poor

( Vulnerable) Low income poor

20%Working Ultra Poor / Very Very Poor

5% Disabled / Destitute / extremely old

Next steps

• Using the reflection workshop to learn from success and failures

• Measuring existing and post-intervention income gains regularly; understanding basic net income

• Analyzing all interventions from benefits to the poor; direct and indirect

• Reflect on systems and processes which enable us to work for the poorest

• Set up clear goals and plans, processes and resources for 2-3 years rather than annual allocations

• Break role barriers and reflect on gandhiji’s statement before walking away from any village

Lessons from Narayan Murthy

• Learning from experience-it is less important where you start; more important how and what you learn. More difficult to learn from success than failure.

• Power of chance events -how we respond systematically to chance events that is crucial.

• Belief that ability can be developed (and not inherent)—leads to a growth mindset, tendency to embrace challenges, to learn from criticism and reach higher levels of achievement

• Self-knowledge and self-reflection-the highest form of knowledge

Gandhi and poverty

“I will give you a talisman. Whenever you are in doubt, or when the self becomes too much with you, apply the following test. Recall the face of the poorest and the weakest man whom you may have seen, and ask yourself, if the step you contemplate is going to be of any use to him. Will he gain anything by it? Will it restore him to a control over his own life and destiny ? In other words, will it lead to Swaraj (i.e. self-rule) for the hungry and spiritually starving millions ?

Then you will find your doubts and your self melting away.”Mahatma Gandhi