I came across a story from rural India. “Ramabai from Pikjharan village in Bargah district, 370 km west of Bhubaneswar earns Rs 60,000-75,000 a year from. Rambai could manage to convince a large landowner in the village to lease a two-acre farm to her. She grew potato, tomato, brinjal, cauliflower and cabbage – doing all the work on her own, from digging, ploughing and watering to harvesting. She even carried the vegetables to the local market and sold them herself.”

The story is interesting, as most of the farmers have a landholding of around two acres in India. If Ramabai can earn and live a life well enough that can be benchmark for the farmers in general, why can’t the others emulate the way Ramabai operates? Do many of the farmers require a real handholding to show them the way to make their farming viable, profitable and enjoyable? Is the farming loosing its charm and the respectability in the society? I think the disenchantment from farming has many more important reasons and some based on the overall changes in the aspirations and ambitions of the next generation of the rural society. I have seen youths preferring a meager lowly paid job in the urban India requiring much tougher, sometimes even inhuman working condition and pretty poor remunerations and very poor living conditions rather than working on their farm and living in much better accommodation. Perhaps they prefer independence more and so do their spouses. Many a times, the pressure comes from the later for this switch over to any engagement in urban India.

For the people who chose farming as profession, Ramabai model can work only till the family remains small. Unfortunately, the family planning has become an outdated subject. Unfortunately, most of the farmers do hardly get any formal learning from the present education system. The basics of agriculture are not in any school curricula in any state. Why can’t Mr. Sibal or Prof Yaspal do something about its inclusion? But perhaps they can’t appreciate this. Sibal talks of including some content on law.

Will the government or other agencies in rural India come out to help the farmers with the knowledge and information required for farming? Can the government, the corporate houses interested in investing in rural India or NGOs working there help all the farmers with the best solutions to their real problems such as right seeds, best crop combinations on the land available, the soil test desirable to decide the right amount of inputs such as fertilizers and insecticides, and the market giving the best price for their produce? Farmers do require some other assistance too. How can the family manage the financial burdens of emergencies in the household such as marriage, illness, and legal matters? Who can be of the best help in such emergencies?

Hardly few who decide the policies affecting the farmers and work to bring them out from their miserable conditions have the knowledge of the real problems.