Today, both middle-aged and young people are shunning agriculture. There might not be a next generation of farmers left in the country.

In 2011, 70 per cent of Indian youths lived in rural areas where agriculture was still the main source of livelihood. According to the 2011 Census, every day 2,000 farmers give up farming. The income of a farmer is around one-fifth of a non-farmer.

In 2016, the average age of an Indian farmer was 50.1 years. This is worrying because the next generation of the current farmers is quitting the profession. It means we are approaching a situation where one of the biggest consumers of food will be left with few farmers.

The youth among the farming communities are hardly interested in agriculture — so much that a majority of students graduating from agricultural universities switch to other professions. As it emerges, those who work in family farms or are in some other way involved in farming are also doing so with compulsion.

Only 1.2 percent of 30,000 rural youth surveyed by non-profit Pratham for its 2017 Annual Status of Education Report aspired to be farmers. While 18 percent of the boys preferred to join the army and 12 percent wanted to become engineers. Similarly, for girls, who play a major role in traditional farming, 25 percent wanted to be teachers.

The percentage of students in agricultural or veterinary courses around India amounts to less than half a percent of all undergraduate enrolments,” Madhav Chavan, founder of Pratham, said.

Although the percentage of population working in agriculture and related areas has now reduced to about 50 per cent, it is an area that could use a more educated and trained workforce considering that productivity lags far behind world’s leading nations.

It is not just India. Farming population across the world is ageing without an adequate replacement by the next generation. The average age of a farmer in the US is 58 years, while that of a Japanese farmer is 67 years. Every third European farmer is more than 65 years old.

Like in India, farmers are quitting farming worldwide. In Japan, for instance, in the next six to eight years, 40 percent of farmers will quit farming. In fact, the Japanese government has embarked on a massive plan to encourage people below 45 to become farmers.

Arguably, reviving India’s agriculture is the country’s most important agenda. Never before has India faced such a huge challenge to meet its food demand. By 2050, out of India’s estimated 1.9 billion population, more than two-thirds will be in the middle-income group. This will double the food demand.

Advancing age of farmers is likely to influence the growth of agriculture in ways that are uncertain and unpredictable. But this demand can be converted into a huge income opportunity, if the country has the farmers and the supporting technological wherewithal through its vast educational institutions.

According to this survey, the maximum number of operational land holders (33.7 per cent), belonged to the age group of 41-50 years, followed by 33.2 per cent in the age group of 51-60 years. While this generation is reaching the age of retirement, the next one does not want to farm.

Although the percentage of population working in agriculture and related areas has now reduced to about 50 per cent, it is an area that could use a more educated and trained workforce considering our productivity is much less than that of world’s leading nations.

Most of the households now earn more out of non-farm sources. The irony, though, is that a majority of Indian youth still live in rural areas where agriculture is the dominant and default source of livelihood by inheritance.

With India’s transition from a predominantly rural economy to an urban one, people’s occupations and preferences will also change. The immediate concern is whether India’s farming population will remain the same or will it migrate to non-farm occupations.

The other big question is whether agriculture would survive by being lucrative enough to provide for the survival of its practitioners? Much would depend on the resolution of the rural-urban situation.

Going by the census definition, a habitation is declared urban (excluding a municipality, corporation, cantonment board and a notified town area committee) if it has a minimum population of 5,000; at least 75 per cent of the male working population is engaged in non-agricultural pursuits; and the population density is at least 400 people per sq km.

Such habitations are also called the Census Towns. Between Census 2001 and Census 2011, the number of Census Towns increased from 1,362 to 3,894. This indicates that people in rural areas are quitting farming or joining non-farm livelihoods.

For the first time in history, a census (Census 2011) reported a decline in the population growth rate of rural India. There are indicators that many rural residents are not taking up farming despite being unemployed and having small lands. This shows that India is on the cusp of a major change.

In a research paper for the Niti Aayog, economist Ramesh Chand ,has analysed the transformation in the rural economy.Since 2004-05, it has become a non-farm economy. Farmers are quitting agriculture and joining non-farm jobs. It is an economic decision they have taken because they earn more from the latter.

This structural change came after the economic reforms in 1991-92. Chand’s research shows that between 1993-94 and 2004-05, growth in agricultural sector decelerated to 1.87 per cent, whereas growth rate in non-farm economy accelerated to 7.93 per cent.

This coincided with a sharp decline in agriculture’s contribution to rural economy: 39 per cent in 2004-05 from 57 per cent in 1993-94. The gap between farm and non-farm incomes has grown from a ratio of 1:3 in the mid-1980s to 1:3.12 in 2011-12. 

The construction sector accounted for 74 per cent of the jobs created in non-farm sectors in rural areas between 2004-05 and 2011-12.

The government’s political grandstanding on its investment in infrastructure is because it is this sector that absorbs rural work seekers. But there is a catch here. Despite the change in the rural economy, the non-farm sectors are not able to absorb job seekers because they are not able to generate jobs at the required rate.

For example, during the pre-reform phase, rural employment had 2.16 per cent annual growth. This reduced in post-reform phase, despite a high economic growth.

During 2004-05 and 2011-12, about 34 million farmers moved out of agriculture, shows National Sample Survey Office data. This is 2.04 per cent annual rate of exit from farming.

At the same time, the study argues, agriculture has huge potential to gainfully absorb the new workforce. Close to 67 percent of rural youth live in areas that have high agricultural potential.

The share of India’s prime working-age population (20-59 years) employed in agriculture and allied sectors has fallen to around 23% in 2018-19 compared to 40% in 2004-05. Only around 14% of young Indians (20-29 years) now work in agriculture. 

In Kerala, Punjab, and Haryana, less than 15% of the prime working-age population is directly employed in agriculture.

While states such as Punjab, Bihar, Odisha, and Tamil Nadu have raised industrial employment (including the construction sector), the share of prime working-age adults in the industrial sector has declined in Maharashtra and Rajasthan.

The southern states of Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Kerala have seen the highest increase in the share of the prime working-age population employed in the service sector.

Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous state has been the worst performer in terms of its ability to absorb its workforce in the non-farm sectors.