EC Nutrition

Urbanisation is not simply concerned about increasing magnitude of residents or stretching the geographies, rather about comprehensive change from rural to urban settings in terms of social systems and economic ecosystems. Farm land turning into real estate property, airports, bus stations, sky scrapers, bypass roads and industrial parks is observed. Against this backdrop, the current study is an attempt to know the impact of urbanization on occupational diversity and income of farmers in the north of Bengaluru city, whose outskirts are on the anvil of being mending into urban. Survey Stratification Index (SSI) was used to segment the study area into three gradients viz., urban, transition and rural for better examination. Herfindahl Index (HI) is used to assess the occupational diversity. The results revealed that the diversification in livelihoods run in parallel with the level of urbanisation. Higher occupational diversity was noticed in urban area (0.22) followed by transition (0.23) and rural (0.26) areas. The respondents derived income from various sources like farm, off-farm and non-farm activities. The total annual income of household was higher in urban area (Rs. 7,61,267) followed by transition (Rs. 7,10,411) and rural (Rs. 5,84,598) areas. Nevertheless, dependency on agriculture was seen across gradients, the urbanising segment started deriving incomes largely from off-farm and non-farm activities. In addition, even within the purview of agriculture, the urban and transition farmers shifted towards cultivating high value and low volume commercial crops, having high demand in urban areas. Agriculture Labours have started to work at establishments in city, owned small business and enterprises, and rental business to expanding urban populace. Overall, urbanisation and occupational diversity positively impacted agrarian households in increasing the wealth/income through diversification of agriculture and accelerated growth of non-agricultural activities. However, its impact is varying across gradients. The study concludes that there is a strong need for creating awareness among households about production and occupational diversity and to develop sustainable farming systems for both rural and urban areas, integrating both agriculture and allied activities so that the farmers income can be doubled and livelihood security of farming community can be best assured in long run.

Keywords: Urbanization; Livelihood; Occupational Diversity and Rural-Urban Interface

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