Poverty is the main cause of child labour in agriculture, especially in the context of family farming. The prevailing ‘slash and burn’ shifting cultivation, is the predominant farming system of family farming. Every year farmer prepare new land for new crops and make agricultural work more intensive. This may lead children’s labour.
A need to cultivate greater land area to produce more food to fight against food insecurity and poverty shrinks the fallow periods and disrupts the restoration of soil fertility and rejuvenation of exhausted soils. The short fallow periods lead to rapid degradation of the environment. and increases weed infestation and soil fertility decline. This practice is not sustainable as crop yields are declining while labour required to control weeds is increasing and needs children’s labour.
Therefore, to stopped child labour in agriculture need to promote safer agricultural practices, in regarding, mechanization, good duration of the fallowing phase and rotation, natural soil fertilization, accessing to credit, insurance for famers, improving rural livelihoods and income-generating activities for women could prevent children to work in agriculture. These solutions contribute to restore soil fertility and biodiversity.
In Addition, the armed conflicts and the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)/AIDS epidemic have devastated many families, left millions of children orphaned, have disrupted the life in the villages and rural communities and increasingly have contributed to the poverty growth.
For stopped child labour in agriculture means to implement strengthen the program for the care of orphans and promote access child to education, especially for girls.
Sra. Adèle Grembombo