Farm Parent and Youth Aspirations on the Generational Succession of Farming: Evidence From South India

Ravi Nandi,Nitya Rao,Raj Rengalakshmi,C M Pratheepa,Swamikannu Nedumaran

doi:10.3389/fsufs.2021.804581

Abstract

Agriculture remains vital in ensuring the food security of developing economies like India, yet increasing rural-urban migration, an aging farm population, and waning interest of rural youth in agriculture are emerging concerns. This paper focuses on the aspirations of farm parents and their children in agriculture, the challenges they confront, and potential solutions. We draw on qualitative data from two rural sites in Southern India, different from each other in their agro-ecological and social contexts, to point to the material, social, relational, and structural factors shaping aspirations. First, agrarian distress, resulting from climate variability and market uncertainty, affects farm households' socioeconomic status, resulting in farmers' aspiration failure in agriculture. Farm parents then focus on educating their children, aspiring for secure non-farm jobs for their sons, and finding suitable marriage partners, also in non-farm employment, for their daughters. While this steer from parents discourages youth from aspiring to careers in agriculture, in reality, there is a wide gap in the achievement of aspirations, and a majority of youth, especially young women, do end up working on their family farms. For the future development of agriculture and sustainable food systems, it is essential to protect young farmers from aspiration failures and innovate through appropriate policies.

Highlights

Agriculture continues to play an important role in developing economies, yet with increasing rural-urban migration, aging farm population, and waning interest of rural youth in agriculture, its sustainability is increasingly under threat
Aspirations in farming: Challenges confronting farm parents and youth: we present our results in line with the four key themes identified through our analysis
The socio-demographic information relating to our respondents, presented in Table 3, reveals that the majority of landholding respondents from Telangana belong to the Backward Castes (BC) and in Tamil Nadu to the Most Backward Castes (MBCs)

Summary

Introduction

Agriculture continues to play an important role in developing economies, yet with increasing rural-urban migration, aging farm population, and waning interest of rural youth in agriculture, its sustainability is increasingly under threat. The importance of creating opportunities for youth in the global food system is increasingly recognized, not just for securing the goals of poverty reduction, employment, food, and nutrition security, but ensuring that as the farmers, entrepreneurs, and workers of tomorrow, they realize their potential to feed the world and solve global challenges (IFAD, 2019). Agriculture is seen as a non-remunerative livelihood activity with unstable returns due to the increasing costs of production, climatic risks, market failures, and a lack of social respectability. Lack of attention to Aspirations of Farming Communities the needs of farmers, especially youth, has contributed to rising agrarian distress (Shroff, 2019), and weak aspirations in agriculture

Results

Discussion

Conclusion