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Not industry, small farms key to jobs growth: Indian expert
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By Arul LouisUnited Nations, April 2
Calling the decimation
of small farms “the biggest catastropheâ€, an Indian sustainable
development expert has said that improving the lot of the small farmer
while increasing productivity holds the key to employment growth and
ending poverty.
Speaking at a panel discussion at the UN Economic
and Social Council (ECOSOC) here on Wednesday, Pavan Sukhdev, the
founder of GIST Advisory, said that size and scope of the farm sector
was not adequately recognised in the rush to create jobs that focused on
industry and the non-farm sector.
More than one billion people
worked on farms and a majority of farms, which were less than two
hectares in size and produced half of all the food, he said.
In
contrast, he said, the number of jobs in the technology, industrial and
other non-farm sectors were smaller and pointed out that, for example,
there would not be a demand for one billion software professionals.
Therefore,
Sukhdev called for making small farms the drivers of employment and
economic growth by providing them access to sustainable technology and
giving more help to the small farmer.
Small farms were now at
risk, Sukhdev said, not only from factors like climate change but also
from corporations that were decimating them through industrialising
agriculture. This was “the biggest catastropheâ€, he said.
The
theme of the panel discussion was “Wanted: 600 million jobs!†The UN
and its affiliated organisations say that is the number of jobs that
have to be created over the next decade to provide employment to a
growing youth population, alleviate poverty, sustain economic growth and
ensure social stability.
N.S. Rajan, the chief human resource
officer of the Tata Group, said that corporations had to realise their
role in society and cited Swami Vivekananada as saying that a society
that exploits one section for another is like a bird with one wing.
His
group's founder Jamshedji Tata understood this and his belief was that
corporations were an integral part of society and must function as such,
Rajan said.
As a result, 66 percent of Tata Sons is owned by
philanthropic trusts. This philosophy also led the company from its
earliest days more than a century ago to provide creches and schools to
enable women to work, thus increasing the nation's workforce.
The
group has over 550,000 workers, of whom 115,000 were women and it was
committed to doubling their numbers, Rajan said. There were now 350
women leaders in the company and its goal was to increase their number
to 1,000 by 2020, he added.
Referring to the overall job
development situation, he said the group worked to develop the skills of
its recruits and many of them later left to work for other companies.
This led to making more people employable and contributing to economic
development.
Sukhdev cited the case of Infosys as an example of
how the top private sector companies were taking on the role of training
and developing the nation's workforce. Every year Infosys hired and
trained about 30,000 people, and of them about 18 percent will
ultimately leave to go to work for other companies and in other nations,
he said. This was an export of human capital to other companies and
countries, he said.
Participating in a general ECOSOC debate
earlier on economic and social integration, India's Permanent
Representative to the UN Asoke Kumar Mukerji said that employment
generation must be at the centre of sustainable development and balanced
economic growth.
For developing countries to harness their
democratic dividend, creating decent jobs was essential, he said.
Therefore, the Indian government has launched an ambitious initiative to
make the nation a destination for world-class manufacturing, he added.
With
54 percent of Indians under 25 years, the nation was poised to reap the
population dividend, but first it must make them educated and
employable for the 21st century jobs and the government was taking
institutional and policy measures for this, he said.
(Arul Louis can be contacted at [email protected])