Labor Migration and Effects of Remittances and Commodity Enclosures on Industrial Agriculture and Forest Landscapes

University Of California-Berkeley, Berkeley CA

Investigators

Abstract

This project examines the interactive effects of circular labor migration and large-scale commodity enclosures on land use, land cover, and resource control. Circular labor migration and the mobility of capital are tremendously important for rural livelihoods and landscape formation around the world as millions of people and substantial funds regularly move long distances between home and work. Migration remittances are infusing cash into rural areas, causing shifts in local labor regimes and household accumulation strategies and generating shifts in land use and land cover. Concurrently, governments and corporate investors acquiring land for large-scale production of agricultural and forest commodities alter landscape composition and rural employment opportunities. Yet, little is known about interactions between labor migration and commodity concessions, including the effects of migration and remittances on land use and land cover in and around plantations. This research merges approaches from political and land change science to tackle understudied questions about the biophysical and social effects of labor migration and land use change. Findings from the research will be informative for government policy, NGO assistance strategies, and institutional practices concerned with economic development, transnational migration, and resource management. The research examines how labor migration and large-scale commodity plantations interact and reshape processes of land cover and land use change (LCLUC) in regions where industrial agriculture and forestry concessions are expanding rapidly. By combining remote sensing with ethnographic and other social science approaches, it assesses (i) how large-scale concessions affect patterns and rates of labor migration from rural areas, (ii) how labor migration influences household labor allocation and new resource investments, and (iii) how resource investments enabled by remittances from migration produce measurable changes in land use and cover. These objectives are investigated at multiple scales (districts, villages, and households) in four provinces where large-scale land acquisitions are present and labor migration is an important household livelihood strategy. The investigators collaborate with local researchers in each site and coordinate efforts through annual data sharing, planning, and training workshops.