New Delhi: The government should find ways to encourage the next generation to take up farming as a profession, Dattatreya Hosabale, general secretary of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), said Saturday.
Speaking at the concluding ceremony of a two-day international conference on agriculture, he added that rampant migration to cities will finish off agriculture in the country, which could have an adverse affect on Indian culture and civilisation.
“Over 52 per cent of the Indian population live in urban areas, according to the last Census. This is not a good trend. If people from rural India keep migrating to urban areas like this, India’s name and character as a Krishi Pradhan Desh (agriculture-centric country) will be destroyed; Indian culture and civilization, built around this primary character of Bharat, would also be adversely affected.”
“The young generation needs to be drawn towards farming through skill development and good incentives,” he said at the conference organised by RSS affiliate Bharatiya Kisan Sangh (BKS), Bharatiya Agro-Economic Research Center and the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR).
Hosabale also said that prices of food grains must stay affordable and should not be increased, adding that farmers should be entitled to guaranteed income. His remarks came on the heels of the GST Council’s decision to levy 5 per cent GST on pre-packaged and pre-labelled food items, including cereals, rice, flour and curd.
“Food prices and inflation have been discussed here. The prices of food grains should not go up. Prices of industrial products can rise, but prices of food grains and food items should remain affordable.
“But for that, the farmers should not suffer. They should not be losing their principal amount of money that they put into farming. There should be guaranteed income for them,” he said.
Dattatreya Hosabale also said that while doubling the income of farmers is a good thought, farmers should also get ‘samman’ (respect).
“All farmers are not poor, there are rich farmers too. But what status do they have in society? Are they invited for government programmes by the district magistrate, while the doctors and the advocates are called?
“Agricultural scientists or professors have a social status but why aren’t agriculturists given that samman, we need to ensure that,” the RSS general secretary said.
Hosabale also said that colleges offering degree courses on agriculture should have a chapter on the growth of agriculture in India, adding that institutes such as the National Council of Rural Institutes (NCRI) started by P.V. Narasimha Rao should be given adequate funding.
“Indian students should know the Indic ways of agriculture. Around 1,200 years ago, a rishi (monk) wrote a book on agriculture, Krishi Parashara. It included everything from weather prediction to monsoon farming, and how to plough, ways of using fertiliser, how to make fertiliser from gobar (cow dung). These are not foreign things, we have had all this technology, we just need to re-read it,” he said.
(Edited by Amrtansh Arora)
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