January 2, 2025
SCARP PhD student Khadija Anjum and SCARP Professor Nora Angeles have co-authored a paper in Agriculture and Human Values:
Anjum is excited to get the word out about this paper, as it has some crucial insights about the plight of landless farm workers.
About their findings
"In this publication, I explore how class structures, caste-based marginalization and poor redistributive measures undermine livelihoods for landless workers despite rising profitability of the commodities they help to produce. Through regression analysis and interviews, I underscore how informal credit systems embedded in “vertical” social network hierarchies both sustain farm workers’ short-term survival but perpetuate long-term indebtedness and wage squeezes, capturing the complexities of local growth and development efforts, especially as farm profits dwindle amid growing urban sprawl and declining yields."
-Khadija Anjum
Until now, farm workers' wellbeing amid rising commodity prices is poorly studied, and much of the existing literature on this subject draws from simulations of historic data, relying on many simplifying assumptions, and does not specifically focus on farm labor.
Relying on unique survey and interview data gathered from the hard-to-reach population of farm workers, this research underscores challenges, but also opportunities for improving farm worker livelihoods as the prices of the commodities they help to produce rise.
As main author Khadija Anjum describes:
About Khadija Anjum
Anjum's research inquires regard the gendered food security impact of food inflation and food security for low-income groups. Her professional career has included roles in the development and academic sectors.
About Nora Angeles
Angeles' research regards community/international development studies and social policy, participatory planning/governance, participatory action research, and the politics of transnational feminist networks, women’s movements and agrarian issues, particularly in Southeast Asia.