未来农业工作的一些思考(英文版)

Public Disclosure AuthorizedJOBS WORKING PAPERIssue No. 40Public Disclosure AuthorizedPublic Disclosure AuthorizedThe Future of Work in Agriculture- Some ReflectionsLuc Christiaensen, Zachariah Rutledge, and J. Edward TaylorPublic Disclosure Authorized

The Future of Work in Agriculture -

Some Reflections*

Luc Christiaensen, Zachariah Rutledge, and J. Edward Taylor

March 10, 2020

Abstract:

As countries develop (and food saturation takes hold), agriculture’s role as domestic employer declines. But the broader agri-food system (AFS) also expands, and the scope for agriculture-related job creation shifts beyond the farm. Historically, technological revolutions both have shaped and have been shaped by these dynamics. Today, a digital revolution is taking hold, affecting agricultural labor and skill demands. In this process, societies evolve from having a surplus to a shortage of domestic farm labor, typically met largely by foreign agricultural wage workers. Yet, anti-immigration sentiments are flying high in migrant-destination countries, and robots in the fields and packing plants offer an alternative. Agricultural trade may be similarly challenged. In the world’s poorest countries, particularly in Africa, labor productivity in agriculture remains at historically low levels. So, what can the role of agriculture as a source of employment be in the future? This viewpoint elaborates on these trends and reviews a number of policy options, including inclusive value chain development, better immigration policies, social insurance schemes and ramp up in agricultural education and extension.

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Luc Christiaensen (lchristiaensen@worldbank.org), World Bank; Zachariah Rutledge (zjrutledge@ucdavis.edu) University of California Davis, J. Edward Taylor (taylor@primal.ucdavis.edu) University of California Davis. This paper builds on the World Bank / IFAD / UC Davis workshop on The Future of Work in Agriculture held at The World Bank, Washington DC, March 19-20, 2019. The papers are available at

https://farmlabor.ucdavis.edu/future-work-agriculture-conference. We thank all of the workshop participants for their contributions and the insightful discussions. The views presented here do not necessarily represent those of our respective institutions.

Introduction

Agriculture has been a major employer across the globe and is at the center of discussions about poverty reduction and economic development. As countries develop (and food saturation takes hold), agriculture’s role as employer declines (Timmer 1988). The farm workforce becomes older, more wage-oriented, and more immigrant.1 At the same time, the broader agri-food system (AFS) expands, and the scope for agriculture-related job creation shifts beyond the farm. The income elasticity of demand for food declines, but urban consumers with rising incomes demand more protein- and nutrient-rich foods, as well as foods that are more processed and convenient. These dynamics have been observed across countries throughout history. They are broadly known as the structural transformation (from agriculture to non-agriculture) and the agricultural/dietary transformation (from unprocessed subsistence staples to processed market purchased non-staples). Often, they are accompanied by deeply wrought societal change and ineffective policy responses, including agricultural protectionism (Anderson 2010; Christiaensen 2013).

Technological revolutions both shape and are shaped by these dynamics (Hayami and Ruttan 1978). Examples include steam power, railways and tractors in the 19th century and electricity and cold storage in the 20th century. The current century is witnessing a rapidly-unfolding digital revolution (automation, artificial intelligence, and information and communications technology), with another energy revolution (solar, mini-grids) just around the corner. These technological advancements of the 21st century are affecting the structural and agricultural transformations across the globe in new and unprecedented ways. They dramatically reduce transaction costs in input, factor and output markets; they change economies of scale; and they modify the optimal capital/labor mix in agricultural production, processing, and marketing. This has the potential to profoundly alter the global organization of the food system as well as labor and skill demands. Because agricultural tasks are arguably more automatable (routine and less cognitive) than those in industry and services (Schlogl and Summer 2020), automation could accelerate the exit of labor out of agriculture in developing countries and transform farms and food processors in the developed world. A future with robots in the fields and packing plants, together with “tekked up” farmworkers to complement new technological solutions in specific commodities and tasks, already is taking shape.

Historically, societies typically evolved from a surplus to a shortage of domestic farm labor as they developed. More often than not in developed countries, farm labor shortages have been met largely by foreign agricultural wage workers, especially for tasks that were difficult to automate. Migrant-sending households in low-income countries benefited through remittances. However, with anti-immigration sentiments flying high in migrant-destination countries, the agricultural transformation unfolding in migrant-source countries, and technology increasingly offering alternatives to hired labor everywhere, opportunities to close income gaps across countries through legal farm labor migration may be closing (Carolan 2020). A shift in policy dialogue away from immigration solutions to farm labor problems coexists with a bifurcating global demographic. Many developing countries, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa, struggle to provide employment for their young and rapidly expanding populations. This presents a missed opportunity for

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The agricultural workforce also may become more feminized as men move off the farm more rapidly than women. But evidence on this is mixed, see for example Slavchevska et al. (2019), UN FAO (nd), and De Brauw et al. (2008).

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development. Agricultural trade is similarly challenged in its role to help address global imbalances in farm labor, partly because of its purported contribution to global warming. These domestic and global forces provide the socio-economic backdrop against which the future of work in agriculture unfolds. How countries address these and related challenges will shape the evolution of the global agricultural workforce, as well as agriculture’s potential to continue its historically crucial role in reducing poverty and fostering shared prosperity. It calls for a policy and business environment supportive of inclusive agricultural value-chain development to leverage the food system for employment opportunities on and off the farm. It highlights the rising importance of rural education and digital upskilling of rural populations, so that the agricultural and rural workforce can maximally benefit from new technologies. It draws attention to the need for broad access to digital infrastructure and adequate competition policies to address the challenge of rising power concentration. It sheds an important and different light on the current migration debate. And finally, to mitigate the farm labor transition and prevent a reversal to agricultural policy distortions, it draws attention to the need for adequate social protection systems to mitigate populist calls for agricultural protectionism. The decoupling of social protection from employment holds promise in that regard.

The remainder of this paper discusses the impact and evolution of these different forces in turn and reflects on a policy agenda that can leverage the future global food system to generate decent employment, accelerate poverty reduction, and attain shared prosperity. The Farm Labor Problem - From Surplus to Shortage

Work in agriculture tends to be seasonal and dispersed across space, with labor productivity often low and unpredictable. High fertility among rural and agricultural populations, partly in response to low and variable agricultural earnings, often contributes to low productivity. As countries become more affluent, their demand for nonfood goods and services increases, and their workforces shift out of agriculture into more stable, high-paying jobs in industry and services.2 Over time, cross-sectoral income differences virtually disappear (Taylor and Charlton 2018). This pattern of structural transformation is evident historically in high-income countries and is currently unfolding in low-income countries (Figure 1). Against this broad and sweeping background, what can the role of agriculture as a source of employment be in the future?

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These operate in more controlled production environments and are typically less subject to seasonality and

production risk. As agriculture industrializes, it also becomes less weather dependent and more like industry, with the number of environmental inputs that can be controlled progressively increasing (water with irrigated agriculture; temperature and light with green houses; land with vertical agriculture).

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Figure 1. Proportion of Countries’ Workforce Employed in Agriculture vs. GDP per capita

Note: Data were retrieved from The World Bank Group (https://data.worldbank.org). The beginning of each arrow represents each country’s position in 1991, and the arrowheads show where they wound up in 2017. Nearly every country has an arrow that points to the southeast, indicating that as countries get richer, the workforce becomes less reliant upon agriculture.

First, agriculture will continue to be a major employer in poor countries. In low-income countries, as in much of Sub-Saharan Africa, a decrease in the share of the workforce employed in agriculture is still accompanied by an increase in agricultural employment in absolute terms, as the population continues to grow fast and cultivated land (the “extensive margin”) expands. Given high population growth, the agricultural workforce is projected to continue swelling in the foreseeable future before it starts to decline (Christiaensen and Brooks 2019). Therefore, in low-income countries, where most of the global agricultural workforce is still concentrated, the transition out of agriculture in the short-run does not necessarily imply a smaller agricultural workforce overall. In these settings, the challenge is largely to improve the quality of farmers’ jobs, (i.e., increase their labor productivity and earnings), including to facilitate the transition out of agriculture. In many middle-income countries on the other hand, as well as historically in high-income ones, the absolute number of agricultural workers has decreased over time, farm populations have “grayed,” and farm labor shortages in specific commodities at specific points in time have become a feature of the agricultural landscape.

Second, agricultural labor productivity will continue to rise. The existence of a persistent and large productivity gap between nonagricultural and agricultural activities is received wisdom in development economics. It is often seen as proof of agriculture being intrinsically less productive and taken as suggestive that the policy solution for agricultural labor in the developing world lies in removing barriers that prevent people from exiting agriculture (Restuccia, Yang and Zhu 2008). Recent research, however, suggests that agricultural labor productivity is understated (Fuglie et al. 2020). Using micro household data instead of national macro accounts, controlling for skill differences, and expressing productivity in terms of value per hour of labor (instead of per person employed in the sector), labor productivity in agriculture is not lower than in other sectors (Gollin, Lagakos and Waugh 2014; Gollin and Udry 2019; Hicks et al. 2017; McCullough 2017). This

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