Saving agriculture

With modernity taking hold of almost every aspect of life there is bound to be a trend towards abandoning all past practices and traditions including traditional vocations. This is seen more starkly in the sphere of agriculture today. Compounding the situation rapid industrialization is threatening to relegate agriculture to the back burner.

Today sons of farmers are reluctant to take over the job of tilling the lands from their fathers. They are today equipped with mobile phones and other gadgets of modern day living. Most of them migrate to the cities in search of better prospects. The younger generation in farmer families are increasingly turning their back on the vocation of their fathers and forefathers. Like with most other fields children of the agriculture community are abandoning their traditional means of existence and joining this mass exodus seeking modern day vocations and lifestyles.

If this trend continues we will very soon have a barren agricultural landscape in the country with a rapidly declining farmer community by this exodus of the new generation from their ranks. Hence there is danger of the country slipping down in food production leading to serious consequences. The remedy therefore lay in bringing agriculture into the scheme of mainstream professions and making it an attractive proposition for the young.

It is in this context that steps proposed by President Mahinda Rajapaksa to modernize the country’s agriculture sector assumes significance. Addressing a group of farmers who successfully completed the on line Agro Technology Diploma for farmers in Hambantota on Friday the President said the Government will make all efforts to equip farmers with modern agro-technological know-how to make farming a professional and profit making business. He said developing agriculture was one of the key components in the country’s future development thrust.

Hailing from an area with a huge farming community the President no doubt has the farmer closest to his heart and he must be concerned at the threat posed to the country’s agricultural base by the sweeping modernisation that is changing almost all aspects of life and traditional thinking. This is seen in even among the Veddah community with Veddha children now even entering Universities.

It was the President, one would recall, who mooted a University for Fishermen when he was Fisheries Minister with a view to modernize the fishing industry and transform the fisheries sector from its traditional ways. This was with a view to elevate it to the level of mainstream profession keeping with modern thinking. Perhaps he foresaw the mass migration to the cities of the offspring of the fishermen seeking greener pastures. Thus his move to take the fisherman’s trade to the level of a mainstream profession to make it more attractive to the young.

Hopefully his decision to modernize the agriculture sector with the latest inputs and methodologies would take agriculture to the level of a profession in the modern sense giving it a cloak of pride and respectability. Not that agriculture was sans any honour and pride. In the past it was said when a farmer washed off his mud he was fit to be a king. That was the level to which the farmer was honoured and respected in the past.

But today as mentioned the world has undergone vast transformations putting paid to all traditional values and sacrosanctly held views. Traditional occupations such as farming has few attractions today among the young and unless it is given a shot in the arm by bringing it in line with mainstream professions we might have to face a crisis in the future as regard our food production.

This would be a disaster especially considering that in this post war era huge tracts of cultivable land that were abandoned during the war years are being tilled once again raising the prospect of self sufficiency in agriculture. This is a time that we need all the farmers we could muster to make this a reality.

True, the shift today is towards industrialization and the country cannot be left behind the outside world in this regard. But even in those industrialized countries agriculture is given top priority and farmers are treated on par with the top professionals who use the latest technologies.

Even in such a highly industrialized country such as Japan agriculture holds a pre-eminent position and the farmer is held in high esteem. We too should adopt the right balance in this regard. One can ignore agriculture only to the country’s great cost. The President is aware of this, hence his move to upgrade and modernize the agro set up.