Mumbai: The need of the hour is to make rural farming more glamorous, said director of Nimbkar Agricultural Research Institute (NARI), Anil Rajvanshi, at a conference on Friday. Mr. Rajvanshi explained that during the course of his work with NARI in Phaltan, Maharashtra, he found that farmers’ sons often come up to him and say they do not want the identity of the profession. “One of these kids told me that he will not find a girl to marry him if he says he is a farmer. It is not something girls like.”
The underlying cause for this, Mr. Rajvanshi said, is that farming is not viewed as desirable or particularly glamorous. “Farming needs to be made glamorous,” he said. The distaste for the sector is surprising considering every citizen’s reliance on it for food, he said. “We all cannot eat nuts and bolts and software. We all need food.”
Rural-urban divide
The disparity between the rural and urban is stark, he said. Speaking at the VES Institute of Management at a conference organised by Ms. Nisha Pandey, Assistant Professor at the Institute, to encourage the discussion on social entrepreneurship, Mr. Rajvanshi said affluent management graduates set to assume roles as corporate leaders must find a way to help rural India. “Over 60% of India’s population is rural. Corporate India cannot survive without its 60% rural population coming into mainstream development,” he said. NARI works in Phaltan towards creating renewable energy including kerosene and ethanol stoves, in animal husbandry, including research and lab work in twinning sheep, and sustainable agriculture development.
He pointed out many interesting notes based on his fieldwork — for instance, even though Maharashtra is one of India’s better developed states and Phaltan one of the most developed areas, many rural households have no electricity. Many residents use mobile phones and television, but do not have charging points in their house, having to travel 5-10 km for this. The effort to provide energy for lighting and cooking as well as electrification, therefore, is foremost on NARI’s list.
