Introduction

As part of the study, two districts were chosen in Madhya Pradesh—Sehore and Chhindwara—that fairly represent diverse agricultures and socio-demographic characteristics. Sehore, located 37 kilometres from the state capital, Bhopal, has ample groundwater and canal irrigation with deep black soils that support high yields. Over the past two decades, Sehore’s widespread adoption of soyabeans, an important cash crop, has transformed the district’s agriculture (Kumar 2016). Bhopal’s growth as a city shapes life in this district, especially in terms of employment options. Most of Sehore’s farmers are from traditional land-owning castes. With a Scheduled Tribe (ST) population comprising 11.1 per cent of the total inhabitants (in 2011), Sehore has a few pockets that are predominantly tribal.Footnote 1

In contrast, Chhindwara is overwhelmingly tribal, with 36.8 per cent of the total population classified as being from the Scheduled Tribes; Gonds and Bhils constitute the major tribal groups. It is located amidst rich forests and hills. Its undulating terrain and mostly light stony soils that don’t hold water are not ideal for agriculture. Its relative lack of accessibility implies that the cropping patterns are dominated by food crops rather than cash crops, although this reality is gradually changing. In recent years, those with irrigation have been able to grow wheat and gram in the winter season. Soyabeans have recently become an important cash crop here as well and most farmers sell their produce in the government-regulated markets or to private traders in the nearest towns. Wheat, though, is the dominant crop in Chhindwara. Migration to nearby cities within the state has been a way of life for people here since the mid-1990s, given that work in agriculture is restricted to one or at most two seasons during the year. In the absence of a vibrant non-farm sector, migrants work on other farms or in construction.

The cropping pattern in the two districts that we studied are soyabeans and pigeon peas in the rainy season (kharif) and wheat and gram in winter (rabi). The winter crop is usually grown only when the rains are good or by those with irrigation facilities. Many farmers (men and women, old and young) also migrate for work—usually to work on farms growing soyabeans or in construction—but all of them migrate only for short spells and never travel too far from their village. A majority of households have some livestock—one to four animals, including buffaloes, crossbred and native cows. Although at the state level, livestock is growing in importance as is evident from milk production figures, we found in our sample that livestock ownership had reduced over the decade preceding the study. The reasons most commonly articulated include the shrinking pasture area, limited access to forests due to restrictive use rights, water constraints as well as dearth of labour—there is not enough help available to graze the cattle and mind them. Few households own poultry or goats as their ownership is deemed to be a marker of low social status and associated with specific lower castes.

We interviewed 40 young farmers, 11 of whom were women. We also interviewed 11 older farmers, of whom 2 were women. Our entry points into the farming communities were established via two non-governmental organizations (NGOs): Under the Mango Tree (UTMT) and Samarthan. Whereas UTMT has been working with tribal communities to promote beekeeping, Samarthan’s work in this area is around human rights and they had recently been assisting farmers to access government programmes. Including young farmers from a range of ages and land size classes was our aim when we selected young farmers to interview, and they are not necessarily representative of all farmers in the district. The farmers that we selected also come from different types of families and from different castes and tribes represented in the village, both traditional land-owning classes and others. A fifth of our sample constitutes women, identified via village self-help groups. Our respondents come from 10 different villages—five each in Sehore and Chhindwara. We ensured that we included villages where our partner NGOs were active and where they were not. While our selection of Sehore and Chhindwara was driven by the contrast that they would likely offer, Sehore’s tribal areas resemble Chhindwara more than they resemble the other parts of Sehore.

The majority of our respondents are from tribal communities: 32 are from Scheduled Tribes (mainly Bhils and Gonds), 16 are from Other Backward Communities (OBC), and 6 are from Scheduled Castes (SC).Footnote 2 In terms of religious profile, all barring one self-identified as Hindu. The average age of the young farmers in our sample was 35.8 years, with as many as 20 under 30 years of age. The youngest farmer that we interviewed was 18 years old. Most of the farmers owned between 1 and 10 acres, much larger than the national average. While the majority of farmers (old and young) in our sample had little formal education—25 of them had only a primary-level education or were not illiterate—younger farmers, both women and men, had more education than their older counterparts. Eight young farmers had completed tertiary education. In our sample, most farmers from Chhindwara had no access to irrigation, an issue that will be discussed later as one of the key challenges for farming in general and for young farmers in particular. In Sehore, most farmers do have access to irrigation; their problem is that yields for soyabeans have plateaued and do not bring in same financial returns as in earlier years. In different ways, farmers in general are operating in contexts where farming is challenging. Our interviews with the farmers focused on their pathways into farming as well as the barriers and opportunities that youth in agriculture face.

The chapter is organized as follows. Section “Becoming a Farmer” focuses on pathways into farming and how these differ both within the younger cohort and how they differ from the previous generation. Sections “Barriers Faced by Young Farmers” and “Support for Young Farmers” elaborate on the challenges that young farmers face in agriculture and their support systems. Section “The Future of Young Farmers and Young Farmers in the Future” reflects on the future of these young farmers and the section “Concluding Remarks” concludes the discussion.

Becoming a Farmer

Entry into Farming

The young farmers that we interviewed were farming well before they became farmers in their own right. In this sense, it seems that the line between becoming and being a farmer is unclear. Most men started helping their parents or grandparents when they were as young as 8 or 10 years of age. Those who started helping that young were typically grazing livestock—taking livestock to the pastures or into the nearby forests, minding them throughout the day. One young farmer recollected that he regards the bamboo stick that he used to guide his family’s small herd as his first agricultural tool. Almost every respondent was already acquainted with some of the key farming operations by age 12. Usually, the boys assisted adult men in ploughing and field preparation. It was only later, when they had built stature and strength, perhaps even skill, were they able to use the plough independently. One young farmer recollected how at the age of 15, he was frustrated at being unable to handle the plough and fell repeatedly trying to manoeuvre it. All of the young male farmers that we interviewed came from families that owned agricultural land, even if meagre.

Among the young women farmers, there were three who were not from farming families and began farming only after marriage. For young women farmers, their first roles in agriculture were around age eight or nine when they assisted adult women in the family with weeding and harvest. In Madhya Pradesh, as in most of India, farm tasks are historically gendered, with women almost never involved in plough use, while tasks such as sowing, weeding, and harvesting are often considered women’s work. Although these norms have diluted over the years, the accounts of young farmers suggest that their entry into agriculture was quite traditional and in keeping with the gender norms of the time.

Overall, we see little evidence of new farmers as such—for reasons that are discussed later—and there are none in our sample. The young farmers in our sample, especially the men, belonged to three broad groups. The first group became full-fledged farmers by force of circumstance, even if some of them entered farming willingly. A second group consists of those who had been able to finish school and/or vocational training or tertiary education, but were unsuccessful in finding jobs in the non-farm sector. They were farming, but constantly looking for opportunities outside the farm sector. The third group of young farmers has little interest in education, and despite their parents’ best efforts, these young people looked for an opportunity to drop out of school to take up farming.

Farmers in the first group entered farming after quitting school, often due to family exigencies. Typically, it was because their parents could not afford school-related costs, a family member died, or because they had to take over farming responsibilities from the father, especially if they were the older amongst siblings. For example, one young male farmer, the son of a former village headman, told us:

My father did not ask me to drop out of school. He wanted me to study. But I saw that he needed help, so decided to discontinue (school). I was the eldest so I had to bear this burden. My mother always used to tell me that there is no one in the house to look after farming and people were always calling my father in the village as he was the village head. So I had to do it. If I did not, farming would have been adversely affected [42 years old, ST, farms 12 acres, Chhindwara].

Some of them dreamed of an alternate life—wanting to become policemen, engineers, and other professionals—and had little interest in farming. One young male farmer recounted:

I have done an MCom and MBA. I wanted to have a nice job in some good Multinational company But something happened in my family and I had to come back. I was done with my MBA and looking for jobs in Indore in 2006. I got the news that my father was sick and he was paralysed. In 2008, he expired and the entire household burden was then on me. So I decided to stay in the village to fulfil the needs of my family [32 years old, ST, farms two acres, Chhindwara].

Another young man was forced to migrate for non-farm work in order to support the family farm, which he helped his father manage:

I used to look up to different people back then. I wanted to be something. I had big dreams. I wanted to a get a good service (job) but when my mother passed away, everything got affected. Then I left studies and joined farming. At that time, money was needed for farming and for the household, so I started going to Pachmarhi (150 kms away) to work [36 years, ST, farms 12 acres, Chhindwara].

Some young women farmers rue the fact that their parents did not realize the importance of education and pulled the women out of school to work. One young female farmer recounted how she aspired to earn a job as an anganwadi (government-run crèche) worker, but did not have the minimum schooling required to apply for the post.

Young farmers in the second group are biding their time farming. Farming to them is a fallback option. Some of the younger farmers in this group are still hopeful of landing a job outside and hoping to exit farming, in equal measure because farming is not deemed to be viable (especially in the context of very small landholdings) and because they aspire to a different life. Some of them completed courses to increase the probability of securing a job, including vocational training to become a mechanic, electrician, computer operator, mobile phone repairer, and so on. One young male farmer in Chhindwara, about 22 years old, completed a bachelor’s degree as well as two vocational training courses and was waiting to see which one would land him a job. A government job, and the security that comes with it, continues to be the aspiration of many.

Within this group, however, not all of farmers harbour the feeling that they are “stuck” in farming. Some of them have come to terms with their own status as farmers and are seeking ways to become successful farmers. In this process, their engagement with NGOs working in the regions has energized them into becoming enterprising farmers.

Given the low profitability of agriculture, many parents prefer that their sons leave agriculture. They invariably see school education as a pathway out of agriculture. For daughters, while basic schooling is desirable, the education of daughters is not specifically seen as a vehicle out of agriculture, since the future envisaged for all daughters is marriage. Yet given that jobs in the non-farm sector are scarce and of poor quality, the option of a career outside farming is little more than notional. This is especially true in Chhindwara, where jobs are hard to come by in nearby towns. One young male farmer, aged 32 and who has never worked outside the village, explained that finding decent work outside was not easy: “Even if I went out, getting a job would have taken time. I would need resources at that time for maintaining myself. I had no such means—no contacts in town who could help me get a job.”

For those without such networks or resources, farming is the only option. For some, the resource constraints are often so overwhelming that they have no alternative. One young male farmer, aged 32, had completed an undergraduate degree but could not secure a job related to his qualifications. He is the only son, has no interest in farming the family’s seven acres, and had this to say about his father: “He would scold me and ask me to come to the field and work. I was not very interested in farming, but I would go to avoid being scolded. We were financially weak so I had no other option.”

The third group consists of those who were either passionate about farming or those who preferred farming to further education. Most are now enthusiastic farmers—proactively seeking information from civil society organizations that worked in agriculture and the local government officials associated with agricultural programmes. Most of these farmers are actively experimenting with new techniques (System of Rice Intensification, for example, in eastern Chhindwara or experiments with organic agriculture), new crops, new ways of growing crops, and exploring ancillary activities such as beekeeping, mushroom cultivation, and aquaculture.

In general, among men, the younger generation seems to have greater say in their decision to enter farming than the older generation when they were young. Older farmers recollect that in their youth, there was no question on whether or not they would farm. In most cases, villages did not have schools and going to school was a rare option. Jobs outside of the farm sector were equally rare. There was no room to aspire for a life outside of farming. An older male farmer, age 55 and from Sehore, exclaimed: “What aspirations? My father handed farming to me and said cultivate and feed yourself! That is it. I started farming young and did not consider anything else.”

Another older farmer, 55 years, told us: “One is born a farmer.” Yet another 52-year-old farmer said: “My father was a farmer. This then passed on to me.” Among the older farmers, there seemed to be no room for imagining an alternate livelihood.

For women, it seems that things have not changed very much across the generations. As with the older generation of women farmers, women today are generally socialized into playing a supporting role in family farm operations, rather than the lead. Younger women farmers today have an opportunity to attend school, whereas older women farmers typically did not, but across both groups, schooling is not viewed as a way to secure a non-farm job. That said, at least a few young women farmers that we met did articulate their aspirations—of becoming a schoolteacher or an anganwadi worker, for example. Almost all of these women indicated that they regarded, or rather came to accept, not necessarily out of their own choice, farm and domestic work as being intrinsic parts of their lives and responsibilities.

Generational Shifts and Succession

Across generations, helping with farming did not give young farmers a major say in decision-making, neither in farming operations nor in how to use the proceeds. Most decisions continue to be taken by the family’s older adults, including the choice of which crops to grow, required inputs, and seed use (stored/saved or bought). One father-son pair that we interviewed said that they discussed the decisions thoroughly. The son, 18 years old, had his own ideas about digging a farm pond, engaging in aquaculture, and buying a tractor. The father, 45 years, said that he gives his son a free hand to experiment, but ensured that they took small steps that would not risk the survival of their farm enterprise. This limited role in decision-making did not seem to deter the young farmers.

In contrast, young women farmers typically have little say in any decision, not as daughters, not as daughters-in-law. But not all women are in this position. Older women have more agency, unsurprising in the context of patriarchal structures that bestow some privileges based on seniority. One young man, about 25 years old, told us how his grandmother took all of the decisions on which crops to sow and how to care for the plants, noting that no one in their family disputed her knowledge of farming. Another older woman farmer, aged 55, mentioned that members of her family usually discussed decisions on which crops to sow together with the older women in the family.

A young male farmer becomes an independent farmer, fully managing his farm, only when he marries and has a family of his own, partitioned and obtained ownership of farmland, or both. The lack of ownership rights over land was not always seen as a deterrent to adoption of new technologies. A 24-year-old, high school-educated farmer in Sehore with six acres told us: “Ownership doesn’t matter. We use the latest technology irrespective of whose name is on the patta (the land record).” Another young farmer, aged 30, with a high school education and who operates a four-acre farm in Sehore however said: “I will be more proactive to use new technologies and new farming methods… once the land is in my name.”

For young women farmers, neither marriage nor inheritance is likely to offer them full control over the management of a farm unless they are single women or household head. Managing a farm single-handedly, however, comes with its own challenges. Women in these cases invariably lease out land or hire farm managers to handle the operations. We interviewed one young widow in Sehore who said that she relied on a hired manager to operate and sell produce. She received half the produce or proceeds from any sale while the farm manager kept half. The decisions on what to grow and inputs to use were decided jointly after consultation amongst family members.

Doing Things Differently

Across the board, farmers feel that compared with the previous generation, knowledge of farming practices has increased. As one farmer put it, before agriculture used to be “dekha-dekhi,” meaning that you did what you observed around you. Today, one can obtain training, knowledge, and rules for performing different farm operations. Today’s young farmers rely more on machines for harvesting, sowing, and tilling than their parents’ generation. Weedicides have replaced manual weeding on many farms and purchased hybrid seeds are used as a norm rather than relying on saved seeds. Perhaps the most significant shift has been cropping pattern changes; the emergence of the borewellFootnote 3 and access to water has resulted in a shift to crops such as wheat and gram. Millet has gone out of cultivation, replaced by maize, soyabeans, and pulses. For a brief while, the new cropping pattern proved to be very lucrative, especially soyabeans in Sehore. However, in recent years, yields have plateaued, prices have remained low, and more and more farmers are switching to maize. Those with ample irrigation are also diversifying into fruits and vegetables, both in Chhindwara and Sehore. In some villages, especially in Chhindwara, farmers started using inorganic fertilizers only a decade ago. Many young farmers have recently become acquainted with agroecological farming and organic farming and have a shared sense that chemical inputs are unsustainable. “Once you use it, you need to keep using it…and more of it” was most young farmers’ refrain. Both NGOs and the government at different levels, national and state, seem to have been instrumental in promoting vermicomposting and in encouraging farmers to apply organic manure. Yet few defined themselves as organic farmers. Most were still experimenting and testing out methods in some plots. Indeed, no farmer that we interviewed was an exclusively organic or agroecological farmer, although many were practising several principles of these techniques.

For each of these decisions—whether to go organic or not, to diversify, and in the choice of seeds—the younger generation negotiates with the older generation. One young male farmer in Chhindwara set up what comes close to an experiment, using organic methods in one plot and inorganic in the other to test the relative merits of each. His father had passed on and he was the heir, the sole male member in his family, and family farm manager. This afforded him the space to make decisions that might be harder in multigenerational family farms. In these latter cases, young farmers have to persuade older adults in the household, usually the father, to dedicate a small patch where the young farmer can plant and do with what they want. Young women farmers, in contrast, have virtually no agency. Their exposure to new ideas and techniques is also limited, bypassed as they were by an extension system with male trainers that is oriented to training male farmers, for example.

Young farmers in Chhindwara and Sehore are also seeking to diversify into allied activities,Footnote 4 including mushroom cultivation and beekeeping. The 18-year-old male farmer in Chhindwara, from the father-son pair referred to earlier, is an enthusiastic farmer for whom beekeeping is his new passion. An NGO introduced him to it. Many young farmers are looking to do things differently, urged on by government extension workers, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) efforts (mentioned earlier in the chapter), and peer networks that play a major role, a point that we return to later in the chapter.

Barriers Faced by Young Farmers

“Farmers Cannot Buy Land”

It is hard to have a conversation with young farmers without a mention of the small size of their holdings. Although Madhya Pradesh has larger average land holding sizes than most other states in the country, successive subdivisions over generations have left holdings too small to be remunerative. Over the years, land prices have also risen significantly, dramatically in some villages, especially in those closer to the city or those that have access to water. This puts the possibility of buying land to expand a farm out of reach for most farmers. “A farmer cannot buy (land)… if there is a businessman or someone with a job, they can buy. But not a farmer,” said a 60-year-old male farmer in Sehore, with 10 acres of land and leasing an additional 6 acres. He noted that in contrast to when he was young, “A farmer today cannot dare to buy land.”

The farmers who manage to do so are those with non-farm occupations to supplement their income. A few others have bought land using a loan and paying it off by leasing out the very land that they purchased. Farm incomes, we were told, are not large enough to repay such loans in Sehore or Chhindwara. In Sehore, where soyabean farming has been financially rewarding, recent increases in costs of cultivation without a commensurate increase in the price of soyabeans have left many farmers indebted.

Some young farmers had larger than average landholdings, typically because their parents had the opportunity to buy land a couple of decades ago (when prices were still affordable). In almost every village, it seems that “outsiders,” that is, individuals not from the village, have bought up land and many were leasing it back to the villagers to farm. At the same time, many farmers also emphasized that those who sold their land only did so due to extreme circumstances. No one, except those in distress, sold land today, they said, in part because it is impossible to acquire any later on and because there was barely enough to subdivide amongst the next generation. More importantly, however, securing employment in the non-farm sector and in nearby towns was so difficult that land served as a fallback option, an insurance of sorts. In the tribal areas in the study, restrictions on land sales to members outside the community meant that it did not make sense to sell land, but it also meant that those in distress often had to sell their land for a paltry sum within their tribe. The larger implication of this is that for those aspiring to become farmers without land of their own, the difficulty in securing their own land posed a formidable entry barrier to farming. This is despite the fact that in the study area, caste was rarely considered a barrier to land ownership.

For most farmers who cannot afford to purchase land, the only way to expand farm operations is by leasing land. Leasing is common and, by all accounts, caste and social identity do not play a role in who leases to whom. Lease rates are high for land with irrigation and leasing poor-quality land simply does not make sense for most smallholders. Leasing is based fully on trust. Some farmers have sidestepped the constraint of land by “encroaching” on forest land. Although most of our examples came from tribal communities in Sehore, this was widespread in Chhindwara as well. We were told that all that the villagers needed to do was to pay forest officials a modest sum to farm forest plots that, in a few cases, they had been cultivating for decades, pre-dating the restrictions on the use of forest land. The state has recently been attempting to regularize these plots. In the larger context of the limited scope for expansion of farms, illegal occupation and usurping of land by powerful interests seems common. A 26-year-old farmer that we interviewed was farming his mother’s plot. He stated that although his father had land in his native village, it had been illegally occupied by a powerful family in the village. As his family could not evict them, they had left the village altogether to be able to farm his mother’s land. They managed to buy a few acres in his mother’s village to make the farm viable.

In the literature on youth and farming, access to land is often regarded as a chief barrier to becoming a farmer. In the context of Madhya Pradesh, as most land is inherited and given the limited capacity to purchase more land, most farmers receive land in their name only when the parent (usually the father) dies. It is typical to see young men and women identify him/herself as a farmer, be fully involved in managing the farm but without ownership of the land, again blurring the boundary between becoming and being a farmer. As long as the father is alive, it is not uncommon to see all of the children farm together on their parents’ land, with varying levels of involvement in decision-making. When the father passes on, if he is survived by his wife, the land ownership documents will reflect the names of the wife and his children. It is common for male siblings to then carve out space for themselves and farm separately. Until then, siblings tend to farm together with the parents. On occasion, they might farm collectively but demarcate their individual shares. Marriage is a similarly important life event. When sons marry, fathers often settle the property in their name to ensure that they can farm independently, sometimes even if they live in a joint family. It is common practice to demarcate the land, anticipating future partitioning, even if the formal partitioning is several years in the future. An older farmer in Chhindwara, aged 52, with three sons of his own, spoke of his arrangement with his siblings over the 12 acres that he manages that have still not been formally divided: “We have not done the paperwork, but we each have 12 acres of land based on understanding. We have also demarcated land.”

In some families, the demarcation of plots implies that these are now managed separately. In other cases, the demarcation is notional and families farm jointly. One farmer, around 28 years of age, pointed out: “Father divided the land (16 acres) amongst us four brothers, but we work together and collectively rent in 5 to 10 acres.”

Our study is replete with examples of full-fledged farmers who work land that is not held in their name. A young farmer that we interviewed left school to help his grandfather farm after his father abandoned his mother to live with his new wife. This young man has been farming for several years and he had this to say about the prospects of inheriting land: “My grandfather has about 15 acres… it will go to my father and then get divided between me and my step brothers. There are four of them… right now the land is in my grandfather’s name. I will get some part of it in future. I would want to buy some more land and prepare for the education of my children when they are born” (22 years, male, ST, 5th grade, works on 15 acres of family land, Chhindwara).

As far as inheritance of land is concerned, gender plays a key role. Until 2005, daughters did not inherit ancestral land as a matter of course and Indian law deemed sons to be the legitimate heirs to familial property. From 2005 onwards, daughters were also eligible to inherit land. Typically, when the male landowner died, his wife, sons, and daughters would each have their name on the land record as heirs. From all accounts, this was the practice followed by government clerks. However, in most cases, ownership records mattered little, and the male siblings would gain full control of the land. In general, most respondents mentioned that sisters typically give up their claims to land. Some suggest that sisters do not want a share of what is already a small inheritance and thereby deprive her brothers of a livelihood. Others suggest that marrying sisters well with a dowry is considered equivalent to inheriting land. Frequently, young farmers point out that sisters often seek and value that support of brothers even after marriage and are willing to give up their share of land to ensure that they have this support. This is recorded in other studies in India too (Rao 2017, for example).

While daughters’ inheritance is a subject that is discussed and debated in the family and community, this is not the case for sons. Irrespective of whether sons migrate, quit agriculture, or leave the village, they inevitably partake of the inheritance. In several cases, the young farmers that we interviewed had brothers who worked in non-farm sectors and often were settled permanently in neighbouring towns, leaving the brother who remained to take care of the farm. In many of these cases, they seemed to have a symbiotic relationship—the brother working in the outside would send money to maintain the farmer-brother’s household and fund investments on the farm, contributing to land levelling, boring a well, and so on. A share of the food produced would go the other way, from farm to the city. In that sense, even those who exited farming continued to maintain links with farming. Our interviews suggest that in the bequeathing of land, there is no succession discussion, of which brother would take over the farm, and whether more (all) of the land would be allocated accordingly. The following quote reflects this uncertainty, although this is in the context of whether this young farmer thinks that he will inherit land: “I don’t know what is there in their (my parents’) hearts. We will see; if they wish to give, they will give; if not, that is also okay” (32 years, SC, graduate, seven acres; Chhindwara).

Irrespective of the difference in family situations, property subdivision appears to demand cooperation amongst siblings in ways that perhaps was not required in the previous generation—whether or not to give land to sisters but also how it works between siblings, since earlier, all of them remained in farming: “I have 15 acres in my father’s name… When my father is not there, it will depend on what me and my brother decide. If we can’t cooperate, then we shall divide it equally” (36 years, ST, sole operator of family land, Chhindwara).

Land Quality and Water Availability

While the size of land is a big constraint, many interviewees also mentioned the quality of land as a significant barrier in the study area. In several villages across Sehore and Chhindwara districts, especially in the latter, the land is of such poor quality—undulating and strewn with boulders—that several parcels had been left fallow for generations. In many cases, farming families had manually removed boulders to be able to farm the land. Older farmers point out that in such circumstances, they could afford to leave many of these plots uncultivated, partly because their earlier unrestricted access to the forests allowed them to collect enough food. One 80-year-old farmer recounted that in the years past, villagers used to buy maize in Chhindwara and sell it in the village. With the growing importance of agriculture, the flow is now reversed. Agriculture expansion has meant that marginal lands are now being brought under cultivation and investments in land are needed to ensure adequate yields from these plots. Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) organizations, philanthropic entities established by leading private sector conglomerates, soon arrived in the region with the funds and the means to level the land (more on their role later in the chapter). Many young farmers seemed reenergized about farming since these land improvements significantly improved their prospects in agriculture.

Another huge constraint is water availability, especially in Chhindwara. The undulating land and soil structure means that water is not available throughout the year. CSR initiatives have recently focused on creating and reviving village tanks and ponds to address these needs. Without water, farmers can only depend on one crop annually (the kharif ) during the monsoon. A second crop is feasible only if there is enough moisture in the soil in winter. In contrast, having access to a water source opens up the possibility of harvesting up to three crops a year.

The Imperative of Secondary Occupations

For young farmers, these constraints circumscribe the extent to which they can farm and identify themselves as farmers, despite any preference for farming. Many are forced to seek alternate sources of income. Most young farmers feel that as long as they continued to migrate and take up non-farm jobs to supplement their farm incomes, they would consider themselves as workers rather than farmers. Indeed, for every young farmer that we interviewed, the idea of who would qualify as a successful farmer typically centred on one’s capacity to sustain a livelihood solely from agriculture. Most considered someone to be successful at farming if agricultural income alone was enough to support the family. Others articulated related issues: a successful farmer is variously one who can earn profits, has large land holdings, is free from debt, has irrigation (is able to “grow wheat and gram”), has farming knowledge, is industrious, and one who does things in a timely manner. Our respondents linked each of these attributes with profitable agriculture.

For many young farmers, supplementing income from non-farm sources was the only way that they could invest in their farm. On the other hand, both older and younger farmers maintained that youth’s needs have vastly expanded: “Today a farmer has a compulsory need for a motorcycle, good quality food at home, a mobile, and other things. For all these, a farmer does not have enough means to fulfil… so has to go out” (32 years, ST, Chhindwara).

A 60-year-old male farmer in Sehore was less charitable: “Today, people want fashion, everyone wants to wear jeans and shoes that cost Rupees 1000. How will agriculture provide that?…Even a child these days wants a couple of pairs of shoes. They don’t adjust. Also, education has become expensive these days.” Older farmers in Sehore, both men and women, also pointed out that young women farmers in their families are interested in expensive make-up and beauty products.

The state-run employment programme—Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act or MGNREGAFootnote 5—used to be a reliable source of work within the village. It seems that in recent years, however, the MGNREGA was not implemented well. The more enterprising farmers were trying their hand at mushroom cultivation, beekeeping, and so on, but the majority continued to depend on construction work. Several were engaged in petty trade, running tea shops, tailoring units, driving a tractor, working with NGOs in the area, and so on. For many, however, the only option is to migrate for work, usually to the nearest town or city.

Migration and City Life

How do young farmers view work in the city? City life per se is not an aspiration, especially among those who prefer farming. Young farmers, both men and women, assert that if agriculture were prosperous, they would not migrate. Even as migrants, they don’t necessarily experience life in the city, given that they tend to be confined to construction sites, with little free time.

Most young farmers feel that being a farmer allows them to consume what they produce and does not leave them dependent on food purchases. Many farmers also value the freedom and flexibility that farming affords them relative to a routine job in an urban area, not to mention the clean environment. Some also associate urban jobs with drudgery: “I feel that in the village, one can do different things and grow diverse crops. In town, the nature of work is the same. The schedule is also the same. Outside, people get up at a time, bathe, and do the same work daily. In the village, I can grow different things and do not have to buy from outside” (22 years, 5th grade, ST, Chhindwara).

He shared little with his friends who had migrated: “They mostly talk about money—we earned so much, or got this or that. This is all they talk about. Sometimes I feel that I too should go, but then I realize that I should not. Here, I work hard… and I don’t have to buy food from outside.”

Among many of the young farmers, not only is there no aspiration for a life in the city, on the contrary, they seem to associate it with a poorer quality of life in the balance, based on their conversations with migrants. This is especially pronounced in tribal Sehore and Chhindwara. In Sehore, in the non-tribal areas, it was not unusual for at least one member in an agricultural household to be engaged in non-farm activities, often in the nearby city of Bhopal. A 24-year-old male farmer in Chhindwara told us that many young people in the village who migrate tell him about how they feel homesick and miss their families. As a result, he never wanted to leave. Another 32-year-old male farmer in Sehore, who farms seven acres of family land, said that he never wanted to work outside the village: “I hear from people who go out that they work night and day and conditions are very tough.”

A young male farmer who used to migrate told us: “Work in Indore was very taxing. We would sleep for an hour or so and then work rest of the time. I got so weak after a while that I had to leave that work and come back to the village to recover” (29 years, ST, farms three acres, Sehore).

Another male farmer, about 30 years old, who wanted to migrate for work for the experience said that he asked other youth who regularly migrated to take him along: “They say ‘no, you are better off here.’ They tell me I should be happy with what I have.”

Another noted that he loved the village: “My family and home are here. The air here is nice. In towns there is so much heat. Our village is so cool and you can go any direction. There is no tension here” (20 years, ST, studying in 10th grade after a break, also farming 20 acres of family land, Chhindwara).

In general, it would seem that many who farm today would not migrate if they had a choice, that is, if their land and the produce they grow provided them a source of livelihood, and they could live free from debt.

Sometimes life events, such as marriage, mark the transition to working full-time on the farm and giving up migration. One young male farmer, about 35 years old, who had migrated extensively each year to work on construction sites, said: “…when I got married, I decided to stay here in the village. I also had enough experience in construction, so I started getting more work locally. Then I stopped going to town.”

A young woman farmer narrated that she used to migrate regularly for work even after her marriage. When she had a child, she looked for opportunities to become a farmer full time. That opportunity came when she got a well under a state government scheme. Her rainfed farm could now be cultivated throughout the year, and she could afford to stop migrating for work and engage in farming full time. Another young woman farmer told us:

It was difficult when we used to migrate because you are working for others, harvesting their produce. We had to listen to others but when you are at home, you are working on your own land, on your terms. That makes all the difference. I don’t even feel like migrating anymore because now I have a family and I have to look after them…Farming has also become better with new techniques…now we try to get as much work as possible in village.

Some young farmers migrate out just to keep busy, so that “the empty mind does not become a devil’s den.” A young male farmer recalled: “I once migrated to Hoshangabad to work on the soybean farms…But this was not out of necessity rather something I did with my peers for going out of the village for 10 to 15 days” (30 years, ST, unmarried graduate, farms six acres, Sehore).

An older farmer, 55 years, noted that migration was common among youth, but added a cautionary note about those who do not fully evaluate the related perils: “Their limbs are working so they can go out and work, but there will be a time when they won’t be able to do this. Hence, they should stay here and build a strong foundation for the future. But they are not thinking about the future like that.”

Support for Young Farmers

The strongest support system for the youth in our study area is perhaps the NGOs and CSR initiatives active across many of the villages. These include the implementation of watershed works, incubating farmers’ groups and producer companies, offering training in new techniques, offering allied activities, and arranging farmer visits to other districts, among others. In some places, NGOs such as Samarthan have identified Kisan Mitras (Farmer Friends) that assist farmers in accessing government programmes. Several of them are young male farmers themselves.

In many spheres, the government is supportive, including in the provision of subsidies for drip irrigation, sprayers, seeds, and other agricultural necessities. There are also many functioning programmes for tribal farmers’ welfare. Credit is another area where cooperative societies have a role in providing crop loans at lower interest rates, along with cheaper seeds and fertilizers. One farmer told us about a toll-free telephone number to register for tractor rental services at a cheaper rate of 300–400 INR per acre rather than 600 INR.

At the same time, many also express dismay and mistrust of both CSR and the government. Several farmers told us that government programmes are difficult to access. Village social networks that facilitate access and elite capture of government resources are not unknown. One young woman farmer claimed that most of the benefits of government scheme accrue to a network of elite families within the village. In other cases, bureaucracy was a barrier: “There are government programmes, but these programmes rarely help the poor farmer. The officials make a fool of poor farmers. They make him come to the office 10 times for something and the farmer tires and eventually gives up.”

Another young male farmer said:

Under the government scheme, soil testing cards were made and I also had my land soil tested. But the farmer has to take initiative here. They have to go to government officials and demand these things as officials just want to sit in office and not work. They fill papers anyway, get any man from village and click his picture to show they are meeting their quota. So the farmer has to be knowledgeable.

A 55-year-old farmer also registered his dismay: “Once a gram sevak (village functionary) informed us that if we take a picture of us using tractors in the farm, we will each get 2000 INR. So we did send them a picture, but we didn’t get the amount. The officials can also get unreliable at times.”

Kisan Mitras had provided a useful resource for many young farmers, helping them to access benefits. As the quotes above suggest, farmer awareness is important. A 50-year-old farmer explained why he and his children stay away from CSR initiatives that seem to benefit so many other farmers: “They are building wells, planting trees on people’s land, if they were to ask for money tomorrow, where will I give it from? So I got scared and stayed away.”

Some expressed cynicism, saying that cooperation was no longer there in the village and each one was left to fend for himself/herself. At the same time, many young farmers said that they helped each other out, especially during the peak agriculture season when timely operations are crucial. Farmers’ groups (usually male dominated) and women’s self-help groups are important sources of support; they are often organized by the CSRs. A farmer elucidated the role of these NGO and CSR initiatives:

They have introduced organic farming, gardening, and maize cultivation to the farmers. They provide good quality seeds to the farmers, which then yields a good produce that fetches above average price in the market. Apart from this NGO, there is a Khet Pathshala (farmers group) that is quite active in the village. Kisan Mitras (farmer friends) appointment by the government is also associated with it. Basically about 30 farmers in the village meet once in a while and discuss their problems. We are also told about the latest techniques, seeds, chemicals, and schemes. This not only helps the farmers but also encourages them to be enterprising. For example, we grew maize last year in about six acres of land and it yielded 80 to 85 quintals (1 quintal=100 kgs.) of produce (higher than is typical in this area). When we shared this with our peers, the farmers in the neighbouring village grew maize on 25 acres of land and the yield was 500 to 600 quintals. So everyone benefits from it [24 years, OBC, high school, farms six acres, Sehore].

Whatever the form, it seems clear that even in the minds of older farmers, today’s young farmers need active support: “I think some support from government or an organization or even people themselves is needed. A farmer alone cannot dig a well. But the community can come together and have some built between a few families. If a blind man is provided a cane then he too finds his way and moves forward slowly” (52 years, ST, farm 12 acres, Chhindwara).

The Future of Young Farmers and Young Farmers in the Future

Most young farmers today, even those enthusiastic about farming, would rather their children did not take up farming and preferred they choose routine jobs “outside.” A 55-year-old farmer and father of young farmers recalled: “I wanted them to go to school and study. Start a business or get a job. If they couldn’t then they could start working in the farm. I wanted them to get a job because there isn’t much land left for farming.”

Just as the fathers of today’s young farmers wanted their children to finish schooling, with farming as merely a fallback option, the young farmers of today state that they would not give up land because it would be a fallback option for the children. Some of them want to buy land to ensure that this fallback option does not fail. One young farmer who is fortunate to have the means to do so told us that: “I managed, I am old now…but land is becoming smaller. So for my children, this would be helpful, so I bought 4.5 acres…when the land was still inexpensive” (35 years, ST, Chhindwara).

At the same time, several respondents see their own future in farming in a positive light. Several aspire to invest in a water source, diversify into different crops or ancillary activities, and expand the farm. Those who do not have such aspirations are from the second group of young farmers who are merely waiting to exit farming.

A farmer in his early twenties summarized the problems faced by youth in farming:

The young do not focus on farming because their land is not suited for cultivation. They have inherited land and because their fathers were farmers, they identify themselves as farmers but this is just a name. If their land quality could be improved, land levelled, stones and boulders removed, if possible, water for irrigation provided, then they could produce more and truly be a farmer. This will reduce migration and farmers may start taking more interest in farming.

Another shed light on the predicament of young farmers by pointing to the larger challenges of farming: “There is no ideal farmer… because if someone has a little water, he does not have motor, if there is motor then knowledge about seeds is lacking. So something or the other is lacking. That is why there is no ideal farmer in this or any neighbouring village.”

There are heartening stories as well of women’s interest in farming. One young farmer told us that all of his children had stopped studying, but all of his sons wanted to work in jobs not related to farming. He added: “My daughter helps me more than my sons in farming… She doesn’t like anything else. She likes farming.”

Concluding Remarks

The experience of young farmers in Madhya Pradesh provides evidence that the perception that the youth want to leave agriculture is not entirely valid. We found several young farmers who, given a choice, would rather engage in agriculture as a full-time activity. Both young men and women farmers define good farmers as those who can live solely off of the farm, do not have debts, and are able to reap profits from agriculture. In this, the main barriers for young farmers are in the form of larger constraints such as water availability, the quality of land, and these farmers’ limited ability to expand farm size through land purchase. To be sure, several young farmers feel stuck in agriculture and are waiting to find off-farm jobs. Even for this group of farmers, however, agriculture seems to provide a fallback option, in a context where these off-farm jobs are difficult to obtain and often are of poor quality. In the study areas within Madhya Pradesh, CSR initiatives and NGOs seem to play a key enabling role for youth to pursue agriculture, with a limited role for social media and greater reliance on traditional extension and peer networks. There is evidence that the state, despite problems, seems to offer some support via the MGNREGA or through other subsidies. As elsewhere, men and women have different experiences as young farmers; whereas today’s young men appear to have a greater choice of whether to farm, it appears that young women have less say and see farming and domestic work as intrinsic parts of their married lives. As in Tamil Nadu, the distinction of becoming and being a farmer are quite blurred. People are already farming well before they have independent charge of their land, which often coincides often with the previous generation’s passing or upon the young male farmer’s marriage. Women rarely get independent charge—as daughters, daughters-in-law, or spouses. Our study suggests that many young farmers would rather continue farming if the larger constraints to agriculture, such as water, were addressed. This seems to challenge our popular perception that all young farmers overwhelmingly aspire for an urban lifestyle connected with work off-farm and desire to abandon farming.