INFORMAL ECONOMY BY ACTIVITY SECTOR>> Agriculture

ECLAC. Centroamérica: Cambio institucional y desarrollo organizativo de las pequeñas unidades de producción rural. (Central America: institutional change and organisational development of small rural productive units). Mexico: ECLAC, 1999.

The range of experiences gathered in this document exposes a variety of associative figures created to fulfil the specific objectives of economic and social development of its members. They are small rural producers, mostly farmers who produce some surplus for the market.

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The most common figure is the cooperative, and then we find associations and association networks. They seek to find solutions to the basic social demands of their members. In a big effort to offer employment and income options to farmer families, each organisation or association has developed its share capital by entering labour areas that have been restricted or broadened according to their possibilities but most of the times they receive support from diverse sources.
The organisations studied have opted for productive transformation and their agribusiness integration. To do so, they have developed mechanisms of alternative financing, projects of community trade, offer of assistance and technical training services, as well as rural initiatives of local development. In each of them the factors that favoured their success are pointed out together with their difficulties and the challenges they face.

Córdoba, M.; Gottret, M. V.; López y Asociados, T.; Montes, Á.; Ortega, L.; Perry, S.. Innovación participativa: experiencias con pequeños productores agrícolas en seis países de América Latina. (Innovating participation: experiences with small rural producers in six Latin American countries). Santiago, Chile: ECLAC, 2004. (Productive Development, 159)

The paper contains case studies on participation research experiences with rural producers. Its objective was to review some relevant experiences of technological innovation with small producers of Latin America, highlight the importance of this subject to rural development and suggest elements of governmental policy/strategy and instruments to promote them, focusing on eventual specific approaches that ensure gender equity.
It presents five different experiences carried out in Bolivia, Cuba, Colombia, Nicaragua and indigenous communities in Mexico with varied plantations (potato, yucca, beans, corn, banana and wood products).
The participating research has the advantage of actively incorporating farmers in the definition, prioritisation and solution of problems, bringing together both their knowledge about the complex productive systems and other political or social systems in which they act.
The above adds to the research since while they are trained in new production techniques, thus improving their competitiveness, they build formal and informal links among them, which brings along a better quality of life for them.

Echeverría, R.G. Options for rural poverty reduction in Latin America and the Caribbean. CEPAL Review Nº 70, April 2000. p. 151-164.

Although most of the total population and the majority of the people living in poverty in Latin America and the Caribbean are in urban centres, poverty is, in relative terms, still a rural phenomenon in the region. The incidence of poverty and of extreme poverty is much larger in rural areas than in urban settings. As recently as 1997, more than half of all rural households were living in poverty, and close to a third of them were in extreme poverty conditions. Moreover, the fragile economic situation of most countries in the region during the past two years may well have worsened those figures. The rural poor in the region face at least three basic challenges: (i) inadequate nutrition and poor health and educational services; (ii) few opportunities for productive employment in agricultural and/or non-farm activities; and (iii) lack of sufficient levels of organization to lobby effectively for rural interests. The number and diversity of circumstances that cause rural poverty, as well as the heterogeneity of rural poverty conditions across and within countries and regions, constitutes a challenge to develop cost-effective solutions to improve the well-being of rural inhabitants. The objective of this article is to highlight several options for the reduction of rural poverty in the region. It therefore focuses on three important and complementary options for generating and raising income levels among the rural poor: those based on growth in the agricultural sector, those targeting the sustainable use and conservation of natural resources; and those based on the growing significance of rural off-farm economic activities. There are at least two other options for reducing rural poverty: the traditional migration to urban areas, and targeted assistance to those who need income transfers to either rise above the poverty line and/or have minimum access to safety nets.

Forastieri, V. Prestar servicios de seguridad y salud en el trabajo a los trabajadores del agro. (Rendering occupational safety and health services to rural workers). ILO. Safework. ILO Programme on Occupational Safety and Health in Agriculture. A challenge for the 21st Century.

This paper studies employment in agriculture, the condition under which rural workers carry out their activities, the deficiencies in terms of occupational safety and health, the difficulties to access training and incorporating technical changes, and the lack of legislation that protects the rights of freelance and seasonal workers in most of the countries of the region.
Finally, it presents ILO's programme on agriculture implemented in Central America. Its aim is to improve the working conditions of this sector and promote occupational safety and health among its workers.

Jacquier, C. Social protection in agriculture. Worker Education. Geneva, ILO. n. 131-132, Apr.-set. , 2003. p. 35-40.

This document gives an account of the vulnerability of rural workers in developing countries. It emphasizes the little access they have to social security and their precarious living and working conditions.
The fact that most of these workers are freelance means that they are usually unable to afford social security.
Finally, the document presents a number of proposals made by the local community and the ILO to counteract this vulnerability.

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Programmes of interest

Argentina. Ministry of Labour, Employment and Social Security

• National Commission for Rural Work
  This tripartite unit deals with the protection of family work and the permanent worker in agricultural activities. The aim is to adapt the labour health and safety standards to the rural environment, determining the housing and diet conditions of workers if given by the employer and the reductions made to salaries on account of them, among other things.

Mexico. Secretariat of Labour and Social Security

• Programme: "Support to rural unskilled workers"
  It is a free service of training and financial support to rural wage workers that aims at improving their chances to find employment in rural areas that offer job opportunities.

Peru. Ministry of Labour and Employment Promotion

• The rural worker in Peru: an approximation based on the national home survey of third quarter of 1999. Labour Economy Bulletin Year 5 No. 18, April, 2001.
  The aim of this document is to approach the characteristics of rural workers in Peru, distinguishing between freelance workers and non-paid family workers. It studies their income, labour conditions and the possible regional variations in terms of income and productivity among rural workers.
  

• Cheese Producers Network Programme - Tallamac
  This programme is directed to micro producers in this sector. It has the purpose of developing SMEs in the dairy products sector of Bambamarca through the creation of a productive network and the strengthening of the technical and business competencies of its participants.
  Its specific aims are: creating the Network and directly articulating it with the target market; increasing the quality of products; improving the quality and standardisation of products within the Network; and consolidating the organisation, formalisation and operation of the productive Network.
  

Uruguay. Ministry of Labour and Social Security

• Programme on Hydroponics Training
  The Programme on Hydroponics (any vegetable growing technique without soil) offers technical training to people who need labour retraining as well as rural entrepreneurs.
  Training consists in a course that teaches the tools to develop a microenterprise and/or self-employment in this activity.
  

• Labour training programme for rural workers
  This programme is oriented to improve the labour situation of rural workers by taking training actions that have been designed according to the employment possibilities detected in each area. It is directed to low-income people who have difficulties to enter the labour market; young men and women who are unemployed or in activity, freelance or wage workers, family workers (production or service enterprises).