Are the number of people getting educated in India increasing? Is it true that more of the younger generation are getting educated than all the years gone by? Assuming this to be true, one small thought occurred to me. How many educated people are turning to agriculture? How many sons of farmers are getting into farming these days? If every soul is abandoning farming, who will take it up? This seemed a scary prospective to me.
'India is an agricultural country' - How many times have we heard this? This is fast turning to be a joke. 'We used to be an agricultural country and we are moving away from it' seems to be more appropriate. With this happening, what will happen to the food produce from India? Can the current price rise be due to the supply not satisfying the demand? Are we loosing the lush green fields to education? (An irony we should avoid at all costs!). So many questions and all I can see is darkness at the end of the tunnel! Only time will answer these questions, but I definitely do not want to look at the prospect of reading newspapers and not finding articles saying 'Farmer commits suicide' just because there was no farmer to commit suicide! My thoughts and fears might have blown this issue out of proportions, but I still feel that it might turn out to be true in another 100yrs.
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4 comments:
"There won't be any farmers"--and why is that a bad thing? Besides, why on earth should "sons of farmers" take up farming? If a son of farmer is not taking up farming, it's because he has better things to do with his life. Why should you complain? Anyone feels bad that there are not enough farmers should take up farming, and not ask others.
We may have heard a zillion of times that India is an agricultural society, and while that may have been true earlier, there is no reason for it to be true even now! No society on earth has developed by being primarily an agricultural; and by developed I mean having a higher standard of living.
As to why agriculture is not as lucrative a profession as earlier, there are obviously two things to consider--1) there are other things to do now which were not present earlier, e.g, BPO. 2) agriculture in absolute terms has lost its appeal. Since we cannot object to 1, we have to consider what can be done about 2.
An example of a factor contributing to 2 is the improvement in productivity. Storage and distribution hasn't improved as much, and lots of foodgrain is wasted.
Let's not even go into the government policies which contribute to all the other problems with agriculture.
Since you mentioned farmer suicide, did you hear about how there were cases of murder passed off as suicide to get the government grant to next of kin?
@joy,
I was expecting such an retort from someone and am glad you did that :)
To tell you the truth, I totally agree with what you say. Why should only a farmer's son get into farming?! There are obviously better things to do. No doubt about that. I wrote this just to bring to light the fact that agriculture is losing its charm. If sons of farmers, who are exposed to farming, are moving away from it, I do not think we can expect anyone else to take up farming. It is not a statement but just a concern.
What can be done about this situation is an another big subject of debate! But the fact that we are loosing farmers is indeed an indication of development but not something, I feel, we should overlook. There should be somebody, no matter how developed a country you become, to produce food. Self sustainability should be an important aspect of any society. If we start depending on others for food, then that might not be a developed society that might last for long.
If the present farmers want their children to study, that is just because they do not want to deny an education for their children. Another reason is they do not want their children to suffer. Suffering in their term is to farm everyday.
Indeed they want everyone in their next generation to have a better life. But if these farmers are moving away from farming, who do you think will take it up? I am concerned about this. As you rightly pointed out, may be I should stop complaining and get into farming. But I can guarantee you that I would definitely suck at it.
we have to make agriculture more lucrative. Whether that can be done is again questionable. Nature plays such an important role in agriculture that making it lucrative might be a very tough ask. But surely some steps need to be taken about the agricultural state in India. May be some large corporates might see some profit in agriculture and jump in. Whatever it is I feel, if we overlook agriculture, we are overlooking an imminent crisis.
huh... u needn't worry about such things.... law of demand-supply will even it out eventually.
Assuming 90% of the farmers change their profession in future... naturally the price of food crops will rise.... Once price starts rising 2 possibilities might occur...
*One is that ppl will begin to see that agriculture is more lucrative or atleast comparable to the current state and might voluntarily enter into agriculture....
*Second possibility is that we might start importing the stuff if it is cheaper.
At one point it local-production- to import ratio will reach an equilibrium and at that point farmers will be or mite be earning same income as the BPO person....
Its like... u need not worry about any thing... everything will reach an equilibrium...
As an analogy try listening to that george carlin speech ... "Planet is fine". Humorous one ... but it will make sense...
here is its transcript...
http://www.habitablezone.com/flame/messages/420992.html
I thought about this long back da. There are quite a few examples in our class itself. Goutham, Kt, & Sivaramakrishnan to name a few. But I am not saying that farmer's son should take up agriculture. apdi partha, I have to take up teaching profession and you have to work in SBI. ;-). Everyone has the right to decide their own life. It is the responsibility of our govt, NGOs and of course we ppl, to inculcate interest in agriculture among younger generation. Govt should bring more welfare schemes to promote agriculture. so that it will make ppl to come voluntarily. It is so sad that even botany and agri graduates are rushing towards BPO and IT jobs coz of attractive salary. Its high time that we should realize that we are strangulating ourselves. With the pace the world is growing, I couldn't imagine how the situation would be after 100-200 years.
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