In a typical year, Savitra Thadke, 50, and her husband work as sugarcane cutters at farms in Sangli or Kolhapur in western Maharashtra from October to March-April. In the summer months of April-June, they work as agricultural labourers in their village, Chopdyachiwadi in the Georai taluka of Beed district. Savitra could even afford to rest for two to three days a week during this period.

But since last year, the couple – landless labourers from a marginalised caste – have migrated for work even in the summer. They worked at jaggery manufacturing units in Shikrapur near Pune, cutting sugarcane stalks, making bundles and loading them in tractors from 6 am to 7 pm every day of the week, and together earned Rs 300-500 per day. They sold the green leaves of sugarcane as fodder for cattle, earning a little extra.

“Earlier, in summer months we would get work as daily wage labourers at the farms in our village that have borewells,” Thadke says. “We would prepare land for the upcoming kharif season. But nowadays, farmers don’t cultivate crops like vegetables in summer as there is no water. Besides, many farmers deploy machines to do work like tilling land. For the remaining work, farmers hire women from their castes. They don’t hire women like us from marginalised castes.”

When IndiaSpend met her, she was preparing to migrate to Karnataka’s sugar mills to work from August – and she is not alone. Several marginal farmers, who own less than one hectare land, and landless agricultural labourers are seeking work elsewhere during the summer and monsoon due to changing rainfall patterns and a critical shortage of groundwater, IndiaSpend found.

Migration windows extended

Every year, over a million labourers from the Marathwada division consisting of eight districts – Dharashiv, Latur, Beed, Nanded, Jalna, Hingoli, Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar, and Parbhani – migrate to western Maharashtra and Karnataka to work as sugarcane cutters from October to April-May, said Chandrakant Raut, deputy commissioner of the labour department in Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar (earlier Aurangabad), headquarters of the Marathwada division.

In summers, they would return to their villages. Having earned from sugarcane cutting, they would lead a relatively relaxed life. “If work is available at local farms, they work; otherwise they rest. Marginal farmers prepare their land for the kharif season that runs from June to September,” says Namdev Chopade, an activist who works at the social organisation Sarswati Sevabhavi Sanstha in Beed.

“[But now] they go to Sangli and Satara to harvest ginger and turmeric, or to Pune and Kolhapur to cut sugarcane for jaggery manufacturing units,” Chopade says. “They also work as daily labourers at construction sites, or as domestic labour in Pune and Mumbai.

“Earlier, instances of double migration were rare,” he says. “But in the last two to three years, the number of people migrating in summer and monsoon has increased tremendously because there are no other jobs barring agricultural labour in Marathwada.”

About 74 percent of Marathwada’s population depends on agriculture and allied activities, as per a 2020 research paper published in the journal Environmental and Socio-economic Studies. Outside of agriculture, jobs are scarce as the region is not developed due to poor industrialisation.

Climate change affects agriculture in Marathwada

Climate change is impacting the agriculture in the region. Total rainfall is spaced out over a few days, and generally lasts for only about 15-20 days, on average, a research note by Oxford Policy Management says. This has led to more dry days, exacerbated by flooding and land erosion when it rains, causing deteriorating soil health and reduced water retention capacity.

“Farming in Marathwada mostly depends on rainfall,” explains Tukaram Mote, joint director of the agriculture department, Marathwada. “The number of dams is lesser here as compared to other parts of the state. There are no agriculture-allied jobs like dairy in Marathwada. Hence, if one season goes bad due to erratic rainfall, farmers and labourers face problems throughout the year. They don’t have an option but to migrate to get a livelihood.”

“Overall,” says HM Desarda, economist and former member of the Maharashtra State Planning Board, “rainfall has not changed drastically, but its distribution has changed. There are longer dry spells, followed by heavy showers within a few hours. This causes crops to get damaged. Some circles get flooded due to heavy showers while other circles remain dry. The fertile upper layers of soil wash away in heavy rainfall.”

These rainfall data underscore one aspect of the problem Marathwada is facing: The quantum of rain in any given year is unpredictable and varies widely, making it difficult for farmers to plan their sowing cycles.

Mangala Landage, 30, with her husband Madhav, migrated to Kolhapur to harvest ginger and turmeric in April-May this year. “There was a drought this year in our village,” Landage of Chopdyachiwadi village says. “We had to buy tanker water for daily use and also for drinking. To get water requires lots of physical work as we have to carry buckets and pots from the tanker to our home. Also, no work was available in our village in the April-June period. So instead of wasting money and energy, we decided to migrate.”

Marathwada faced drought in 2023-24, with rainfall of 666 mm against an average of 779 mm, as per information provided by the India Meteorological Department, Pune. There was only 6.35 percent water in Jayakwadi Dam, the biggest dam in the region, in mid-May.

Water-guzzling crops push poor farmers to become labourers

“There is no surprise that labourers from Marathwada have started migrating in all seasons nowadays,” says Pradeep Purandare, a social activist based in Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar. “According to ISRO’s report, Maharashtra – including Marathwada – is in the process of desertification, just like Rajasthan. Water scarcity is a serious issue in Marathwada. The region has 11 major dams, and they all depend on water coming from other parts of the state. Water gets vaporised due to heat.

“Despite this, the government promotes water-guzzling crops like sugarcane and soybean,” Purandare points out. “Thus, farmers who can afford to use [or have access to] dams and groundwater for cash crops end up causing depletion of dam water and groundwater. Besides, dam water is supplied to the industrial area of Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar. Thus, marginal farmers with no access to water have to work as labourers. Agriculture is no longer affordable for most of the farmers.”

The labourers that IndiaSpend spoke to said they were migrating simply to live, and not in expectation of earning good money. Thousands of landless labourers and marginal farmers migrate to western Maharashtra, Karnataka, and Tamil Nadu in all seasons to find work as drivers, plumbers, mechanics and other jobs, for low wages.

As the number of migrants grows, work becomes increasingly difficult to find. Adding to these financial pressures is the fact that even families eligible for various government schemes find it hard to access their entitlements. All of this adds to the financial pressures faced by marginal farmers, resulting in an increase in the number of suicides.

Pallavi Harshe, a researcher at the Society for Promoting Participative Ecosystem Management (SOPPECOM), said, “Labourers return from sugarcane cutting season in April and immediately migrate to other parts to pluck chilies and other work. The migration pattern is visibly changing in Marathwada. However, no large-scale study has been done on this changing migration pattern, which is caused by the lack of job opportunities at the local level.”

The growing stresses on marginalised farmers in the region has also resulted in a social problem, says Heramb Kulkarni, a social activist. “Young men from the Marathwada region struggle to find brides, as women are reluctant to marry into a region where poverty is endemic.”

Rekha Landage, 25, a mother of three kids, along with her husband Amol is preparing to migrate to work as a sugarcane cutter in Tamil Nadu. “Sugar mills in Tamil Nadu run throughout the year,” she pointed out. “We will migrate there in the Hindu calendar month of Shravan, that is August-September, as we don’t get enough work here in the village.”

Activists working in the region point out that the social and political leadership is not even aware of the region’s issues, and do not have a mitigation plan – and thus, an existing situation exacerbates with each passing season.

This reporter reached out to the principal secretary, labour and administration for Maharashtra, for comment. We will update this story when we receive a response.

This report is republished with permission from IndiaSpend.org, a data-driven, public-interest journalism non-profit. It has been lightly edited for style and clarity.

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