Pushed to the Edge, Who will take care of the person who feeds us, THE FARMER.

The lush green mountains, decorated beautifully with steps of plantations, run to reach out to the rays of the first morning sun. The sight is pleasant, and the region smells of eucalyptus. I guess we have finally hit the village.

It is the 21st century, and people here are still living in kutchha houses!

Maybe, there would be some pucca houses in the village, like the village headman’s house or the village post office!

A tour of the village, with birds chirping all the way, left us spellbound with the beauty, but at the same time got us thinking - Are the farmers still living in such a condition? Why not a pucca house? That is the most basic necessity!

We took a stop for some chai and homemade cookies at the house, which had mesmerised us the most. No, the reason was not the magnificence of the house, but the fact that the whole family was out working in the farms early in the morning, and all of them were singing to the fields. Well, some farmers are happy.

Are they really happy?

“So, how many years of sweat and muscle into the fields?” We asked the old man.

“I have never counted, but this is our ancestral occupation. We worship the land, and this is our duty. My grandfather did it, my father did it, and now I am doing it. But I do not want my son to do farming.”

“Why? He looked so enthusiastic, singing all his way as he walked through the fields.”

Confused, we took a pause, and then he continued, with a dull expression on his face.

“You see the beauty of this place, the green plantations everywhere. They all look fancy to outsiders. If only they gave us returns enough to bear the expenditure of the family. We are six people, surviving on this land, and an old cow. The house you see is in the same condition since my kakek (grandpa) built it. You see, there has been no improvement in our lives since then. We earn a meagre income out of this land. Try as we might, the produce doesn’t increase in volumes as expected with the new-age, what do you call...those seeds?”

“High-yielding and genetically-modified seeds?”

“Yes yes... those ones only. Imagine. I do not know how to speak the name of the seeds accurately. How am I going to use the modern farming methods, which I do not understand at all? They all go above my head.

Maybe my son would understand that all, as he is in high school right now. But the size of the land remains the same. We do not have money to buy more land. We have three young daughters. We need to save for their marriage as well.”

His wife bought us chai and cookies in a plate, with some fried banana thins. As we took a sip of the traditional green flavour,  we sensed that his words hit the right notes. He would not be the only farmer here, or for that matter, take any farmer living in any region, who would want their children to take up the ancestral occupation of farming.

We are not talking about hobby farming here! Or the fancy farming retired people do after they have earned enough to sustain three generations in a row !

What do these people get in return for decades and decades of hard work, farming?

They cannot even afford a good nutritious meal, leave alone renovating their houses.

Low productivity of the land, difficulties in getting the credit, expensive modern farming methods, high-on-cost agro inputs, and to add to all these, the debts...leave them broken almost all their lives!

“What do you want to do Surya, if not farming?” I asked with impatience.

“A job which gives me a decent income to support my family. Yes, I do love to work in the fields. You saw me, right? But I have seen my father in tension, and that look on his face disturbs me. Farming is a risky occupation. There are frequent harvest failures, and things get worse due to the unstable prices of the grains in the agriculture markets. I accompany my father to the market every year, and mostly, we return disheartened, blaming our luck!

Threats from the money lender do not let us sleep in peace. You saw the house, right? We don’t have anything to give to the lender. How on earth do we repay the debt? And the interest, well, it keeps on adding exponentially. We have even lost the track of the exact figure it must have reached now.”

Surya’s words pinched us. At such a young age, the misery had taken a toll on his face, leaving a tinge of worldly maturity. I wonder how many more Surya’s would be there, and if there are, we (read World) are in a big trouble.

“But there are government subsidies, bank loans at low-interest rates. Would not that help? We mean, maybe you can take up farming, with their assistance!” we asked almost simultaneously.

“Yes, they are there. But contradictory to helping us, they push us more in the debt trap or it is just tokenism existing for some time and then it just disappears. There is so much of hassle in availing a bank loan, they ask so many questions and documents and to further our plight if they provide any loan it takes too much time making it irrelevant. Worst one bad season and we are struggling to pay off our loan to save our mother, our land.  If we had a huge land, that ran into hundreds of hectares, I might still be interested in farming, by giving the land to the landless farmers to cultivate on rent. That way, I would earn more income, and would be able to invest as well for my future...do good for my sisters and my parents. Having a small land invites a lot of capital, and the returns are very less...almost negligible. One stroke of negative luck and we are close to losing everything. We live with this fear every day of our lives.

"What about NGO/Government provided experts who can train the farmers, with the modern farming techniques?" We probed further.

The experts come initially, and train the farmers, but after a season is over, they do not even care to look back and ask if everything is ok. They teach the basics, but what to do practically, when things go wrong...we are left clueless. There’s no point in contacting them because no one is available to lend an ear, and connect with us.”

Well, he made a point there. A strong one! And the impact it created was not just thought-provoking but perception shattering.

Are we really helping them to better their life, or are we helping ourselves warming the seats?

We talked to many farmers in that village, and the unanimous opinion from each and every household shocked us. No one wanted the next generation to continue the ancestral occupation. Even the children were of the same opinion, so strong at such a tender age. They do hope to earn well in the cities, and save enough to buy their own land when they return to the village, but that is a far-fetched dream right now.

The families know that buying land is now an unrealistic option, as the land prices are soaring high, and the speculative investments in the lands, by the non-farming population is increasing. Such investments are parasitic for the rural population, and they end up losing their lands.

It comes as no shock to us that the coming generation would seldom be involved in farming. There would be a decrease in the number of smallholder farmers, and that is an alarming scenario.

The direct inference that we can draw from this is - A point where the world needs a sharp increase in food production to feed the ever growing population, and the already hungry and starving section of the society (which runs in millions, and is increasing!), we see a decrease in the farmer population.

This imbalance in the proportion would cause chaos worldwide and the fact that we are trying to curb the global hunger and starvation would come very near to a standstill. Because, on one hand, we are aiming for increased food production using best farming techniques, on the other, we are losing out on farmers every day.

The food movements worldwide, the mobilisation of the farmers, and the active participation of farmer organisations won’t reap fruits if we do not work on the core of the problem.

If the food prices remain ever so unstable and unpredictable, where would the poor farmer seek stability?

If the food distribution systems continue to operate according to the whims and fancies of the middleman, the food economy would delve deeper downside.

If this is the last generation of farmers, imagine the day where we all would go hungry, and giving even a thousand rupee note, would stand no chance of us getting a handful of rice or wheat. Are we ready to face that day?

Food would become a luxury, maybe more precious than gold itself!

There are many people like Surya, who do not want their next generation to continue farming because they have seen only distress and misery in this occupation. One would not hear a good thing from them about farming, apart from the fact that they worship their land.

If only their faith transformed into better yield! If only the promises made to them were kept! If only the olive branch is offered to them! They will love to cultivate land as they have done always.

We are losing them all,

not everyone at once, though bit by bit.

The drivers of the green,

the sailors of the yellow,

yearn to sit back and relax, in a meadow so mellow.

They who strive for food,

are the ones who starve due to it.

They are giving up on their faith,

putting the world in a fix.

The day isn’t far when they would near a zero;

only to be found in school textbooks, essayed as a real (or unsung!) hero.