Challenges of decent work for smallholders and agricultural workers: reflections on the Global South

As per the recent estimates, almost 45 percent of the global population constitutes households for whom agricultural activities continue to be significant in their livelihoods. Of these over 80 percent are small-holders, operating up to 2 hectares. In developing countries, about 50 to 90 percent of population depends on agriculture; of these 70 to 95 percent are small holders and agricultural workers, trapped in the long-term structural-historical legacy of global capitalist trajectory. This paper focuses on the current juncture, often characterized as the neo-liberal regime that has been ascendant since the 1970s. Hallmark of this regime is an overarching macroeconomic framework driven by ‘market-fundamentalism’, which has implied that almost all the major correlates pertaining to the well-being of small-holders and agricultural workers, such as livelihoods, assets, incomes, working conditions, etc., have received major setbacks, especially in the South. The so-called ‘peasant agriculture’ in the developing world, directly and indirectly accounting for close to three billion human beings, have been subjected to ever-increasing stress, with decent work conditions being a mirage for them.