- Around 214 million international and 740 million internal labor migrants exist worldwide, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). Asia is at the forefront of this migration trend; as climate change and economic development make farming-based livelihoods less viable, men are increasingly leaving rural areas to seek better employment opportunities elsewhere.
With women usually left behind to run farms, agriculture is becoming ‘feminized’. The increased workloads these women face, and their limited access to capital and resources, hinder their ability to farm productively. However, agricultural output needs to be increasing to support the world’s rising population.
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To explore the impacts that migration is having on livelihoods,
rural development and water resources, the IWMI-led CGIAR
Research Program on Water, Land and Ecosystems (WLE) convened the major policy dialogue ‘Migration matters: Male out-migration
and the feminization of agriculture’ in 2015. During the period November 26-27, 2015, more than 30 participants from India, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh attended the meeting in New Delhi, India. The aim of the meeting was to allow stakeholders present to meet each other, share experiences of migration research across different countries, and identify practical solutions to improve women’s engagement in agriculture and water management.
Fraser Sugden, Senior Researcher - Political Economy and Water Governance, and Interim Head of IWMI’s Nepal Office, started the meeting by highlighting the major drivers of migration, which include a reduction in the cultivable land area due to water and labor shortages, industrialization and civil conflict. A clear point emerged from the early sessions: there is no single definitive picture of migration. Rather, rural development is transforming migration in various ways and for many reasons. S.M. Premasiri, Director of Irrigation for the Government of Sri Lanka, cited financial security as the main priority of farmers in the country, with non-farm jobs and foreign employment opportunities often providing better prospects. Here, migrants undertake household work (33%), skilled labor (26%), unskilled labor (24%), mid-level work (15%) and professional work (2%) (2013 figures).
Participants debated the impacts of migration on agriculture and water management; considered the wider implications of migration for human well-being; and identified ways in which people from different demographic groups are affected by migration. Following the wide-ranging discussions, participants split into groups to identify issues within water access and migration, mechanization in agriculture, and policy. A strong conclusion was that the current structure of migration contributes to propagating rural poverty. Participants agreed that addressing this will require an improved status for women, so they gain more control over resources; land tenure reforms, so that farmers get security and collateral; and farming cooperatives that facilitate greater use of technology.
“The workshop proved to be an outstanding opportunity to share experiences from across Asia, both in understanding the ecological and economic drivers causing migration, and the impact on those who stay behind,” said Sugden. “The focus of research is usually on the migrants themselves. This workshop offered an opportunity to discuss the equally important issues of what happens to those communities that migrants leave behind, and how rural depopulation affects livelihoods and natural resource management.” As a follow-up to the meeting, IWMI has developed a network of like-minded scholars, practitioners and policy makers who are committed to taking the migration research agenda forward.
