Abstract

Chukwendo D. Macaulay

A simmering crisis in the Nigerian agriculture today involves labour and the crisis manifests itself in the
degree of labour availability, labour demand and labour productivity. One of the major products of this
crisis is the increased participation of children in paid, non-familiar agricultural jobs. They are frequently
employed as farm labourers, bird scarers, food crop harvesters, processors and hawkers. More than 132
million children work in agriculture. Agriculture ranks as one of the three most dangerous work activities,
followed by mining and construction. Child labour is increasing in postharvest processing, transport,
marketing and a range of agro industries. Child labour is maybe one of the most striking indicators
identifying vulnerable children and as such pointing to shortcomings in several of the millennium goals as
poverty eradication, education for all, gender equality, combating HIV/AIDS and creation of a global
partnership for development. Most working children do so after a decision in their parental household. To
understand the household labour supply decisions, relation to the labour market and to public
interventions is critical in designing programmes in order to achieve the MDGs. The research on child
labour represents in this respect a largely untapped resource of knowledge for policymakers in the fields of
agriculture, education programmes and poverty reduction programmes. The effect of lack of education
opportunities on child labour is well documented, but existence of widespread agricultural child labour also
reduces the effectiveness of investment in education. It is recommended in this paper that the legislator
should enact laws that will reduce agricultural child labour through redistribution of the nation’s resources,
women should be integrated in the fight to combat child labour and that alternative income sources should
be provided for rural families whose children are the most vulnerable.