Irrigation and poverty of agricultural labourers: insights from village studies in Tamil Nadu

There are several studies on the nexus between irrigation and the poverty of farming households, but not many on the impact of irrigation on the poverty of agricultural labourers in general or on the source-wise impact of irrigation on poverty of agriculture labourers in particular using field survey data. In this study, therefore, an attempt has been made using logit and tobit models. The descriptive analysis revealed that employment days, income and consumption expenditure of agricultural labourers were found to be relatively higher in groundwaterirrigated villages followed by canal-irrigated, tank-irrigated and rain-fed villages. On the other side, the percentage of agricultural labourers below the poverty line was reported to be higher in rain-fed villages than in irrigated villages. The logit and tobit analyses show that the marginal impact of groundwater irrigation in reducing rural poverty of agricultural labourers is higher than of canal or tank irrigation. Among the variables included for analysis, the coefficient of irrigation is predominantly significant, implying that irrigation development reduces the poverty of agricultural labourers. Therefore, the installation of groundwater irrigation, wherever it is needed, and the extension and improvement of micro-irrigation systems need to be focused to increase farm productivity and the income of agricultural labourers to reduce the level of poverty by a greater margin.