Agriculture, Rural Poverty and Distress Migration: Challenges for Inclusive Growth

Rural-Urban migration has received significance in social science research, in recent decades, because of its perceived role in social and economic development and in achieving Sustainable Development. Occupational groups such as internal migrants display higher incidence of poverty and social exclusion. Thus, it can be argued that the basic and root cause of rural poverty, unequal development and social exclusion of certain communities is the disparity in the agricultural sector, which is highly unorganized and its exposure to various types of natural disasters, caused by environmental errors or damages. This paper attempts to address the question: how failure of agriculture due to environmental changes and adversities has an impact on the increasing migration of the rural poor? Moreover, why is such distress migration to cities is largely temporary, by individuals & families in search of alternative livelihood options – chiefly wage work? This complex process was the subject of a study carried out on temporary migrants from rural areas in Karnataka (besides from Tamil Nadu and the former undivided Andhra Pradesh states) to Bengaluru city. The paper concludes by saying that immigrants to urban areas continue to have strong links – economic, social and cultural – with native villages to where they return, often, to maintain them. It seeks suitable policy interventions to arrest distress migration of the poor and dalits in particular to achieve the goals of sustainable development of rural agricultural sector and communities’ dependent upon the same.