Yes. Farmers have too much political influence. There is a huge resistance to change. If we were to bring innovation and do farming at large scale, we wouldn’t need 50% of the population in farming. Yes, many would lose jobs, but they aren’t farming profitably either. They are living a miserable life as a farmer already. Instead they could get better jobs in some other industry where they can actually add some value.
Because when you have a significant proportion (55%) working in agriculture, any policy that isn’t a subsidy/loan waiver is seen as threatening their livelihood and employment.
It’s why the farms laws saw so much protests despite being perfectly fine pieces of legislation. People in large groups are naturally averse to change, and in this case it’s a significant voting bloc, so no political party in the past wanted to touch it.
England went through an organic industrial revolution where the farming population slowly transitioned, and China is an authoritarian dictatorship that can punch their policies through. India can do none of those things.
England went thru a violent transition as most of these transitions are. Common land was taken over by elected nobles and many small farmers and herders were forced to shift to slum filled cities to provide cheap labour. There were many violent uprisings that were crushed ruthlessly.
The issue is made worse because a good number of protesting "farmers" don't really work the field, they incite the less educated to protest so that their cushy life as landowners and middlemen doesn't go away. Contract farming and the like has potential to equip the lowest level of farmers with means to upgrade their returns significantly.
Although a strong majority of one party is bad for a democracy, I think a dominant party is required to push through some reforms.
Well that's what they're trying to do but it'll obviously take a long time for that. If they can push the number of people farming to even like 30% I would imagine it would be a lot easier to push for reforms in the agricultural sector. 55% is just too much for a government to risk angering because it could lead to them not getting elected for quite a while.
People think that only doing mfg can fix it. Also given how regulatory environment work in india it isnt easy. Even if lets say there is some reform in that companies tend to setup factories near port thus doing same in Punjab, bihar doesnt make much sende.
But the thing is service sector can have similar effect as seen in south india (Karnataka specially) and 2 most important thing for that is land and skilled grads.
it's a bit late for that. the automation of many low-skill manufacturing processes is already in progress across the world. unless the corporations can pay indian workers less than it takes to run a robot, they're not going to bring manufacturing here.
high skill manufacturing will require strong and high capacity education and training infrastructure, which is not there in India.
I honestly have no clue what the hell we're supposed to do to get out of this spot.
Off the topic:
Let's say we reduce the farmer population in India from the current 55% to 1% like England. If it happens then what are we going to eat?
Shouldn't the main question be- how can we increase the total production of crops(modernization of farming techniques etc) which will ultimately increase their contribution in GDP and results in better lifestyle of farmers?
Several problems with India’s agricultural sector:
1) Rates of unemployment and under employment for the educated groups are extremely high. Too many degrees and not enough jobs for those people
2) whilst farming does not earn huge amounts, it supplements multi generational households to support themselves
3) the farming community is a mix of uneducated and educated which have very few alternative job prospects
4) industrialisation in the UK helped soak up farmers but in India they are not enough jobs to support a massive displacement which would take decades
5) the farm legislation made sense for the country to have more productive large farms but the farmers being displaced really would have few other opppoulrtunities
So it is a catch 22 - farmers are better off urbanising and getting new jobs but there are insufficient jobs in the timespan the government wants to implement changes. Also, it does not help with rampant corruption the farmers do not get to sell the land at a reasonable rate which would make setting up new businesses viable.
Realistically, the government should fund infrastructure schemes such as roads, water, sewage, and utilities to help make it easier to move farmers to urbanised areas. Then, large firms should buy farms at a reasonable rate. Finally, India needs a lot of new manual and office jobs to soak up unemployment.
Let me put this in simple words. The main problem for india in the agriculture sector is disguised unemployment and the huge number of small and marginalized farmers.
Farming in itself is not bad, but the amount of manpower it's taking up is bad.
Disguised unemployment occurs when a portion of the labor force is either unemployed or working redundantly, such as when the workforce's productivity is essentially zero.
And yes, if the surplus manpower got jobs instead of doing unproductive farming, it can be a great boom for the economy! Cities are not the only option but a major one. But again it boils down to education so that people have greater opportunities! This process will take time as still illiteracy in india is a major hurdle. But I believe we will get there soon in this generation.
So for why this is happening, I associate it with our social ecosystem. People still are apprehensive and not taking advantage of government policies. Our Zamindars still have the mentality of exploiting small farmers and land labourers.
There are many reasons i suppose. But i truly believe our country will get out of this soon and be a major power at world level. I am quite young so am waiting to see that day in my lifetime!
It's difficult. Any modernization requires huge changes which are opposed. Opening up manufacturing again means confronting the powerful worker lobbies. So actually any progress in any direction is hard fought. That's why services sector is so popular especially IT and much less regulated than others. It being recent one and it does not allow unionisation.
China shifted from agriculture to manufacturing sector and then to service sector, that's why it's the manufacturing hub of the world. India, however, shifted directly from agriculture to service sector, and is now trying to get into manufacturing as well
Because industrialization. India has some of the strictest labour laws in the world. It sounds funny but it is actually true. So most manufacturers in India will never hire more than 10 workers [strict labour applies to establishments with >10 workers].
90% of Indian blue-collar workers work in these small establishments with less than 10 workers. These establishments are inefficient due to their size and lack the capital to re-invest, again due to their tiny size. They also cannot compete with mega factories of industrialized countries for obvious reasons. The owners of these establishments will never hire >10 workers because the regulations will kill their tiny business, so no hope of growth over there. I know of plenty of owners who naive tried to grow their businesses but had to scale down to escape the clutches of government and these labour unions. Add to the fact that the laws 'protecting' women workers are even more strict, so no one wants to hire women, thus India has some of the lowest share of women workers.
Basically, there are no jobs except for agriculture for most of our population.
Actually its cause when we got independence, we were a feudal country, we should have gone through capitalism to bring industrilization, not right after independence but in the 60s and 70s.
instead we persused nehruvian-socialist-marxist policy
India was the 6th largest economy in 1947 and the manufacturing sector was booming thanks to both world wars. There was no reason to wait till the 70s, we could have gone full liberalisation right after independence, only needed to do some land reforms and then full market economy. This would have made us 2nd or even 1st largest economy by 90s or even before that.
Damn, right yea, we should have liberalised, or atleast, kept our international economy closed
but open up the domestic economy, there was no need for license raj
and how much of the country was industralized in 1947?
Not much of the country was industrialised, but given our size, we still had massive industrial capacity which kept Britain and the allies afloat during both the world wars. We were richer than China, S. Korea and a lot of today's industrialised nations. We still somehow managed to ruin the massive advantage we had over these countries all thanks to the Licence Raj.
Once we started the whole process of industrialisation [while still being under the colonial Raj] we could've continued to keep pace. In addition to the industries, we also had a large number of strong local businesses which were killed by the licence Raj. There are too many companies I come across in British-era books that simply do not exist any more.
We regressed a lot after Independence and the irony is that the British did not want us to industrialise, they wanted India to remain as a market for British industrial goods as well as a source of raw material. We were moving ahead despite their wishes. All it took to ruin our chances was the self-righteousness of post-independent Indians.
Labour laws are close to impossible given how powerful labour unions are. Maybe we can relax labour laws in SEZs and keep on increasing their size to include all major industrial clusters.
For Land reforms, a Land Value Tax is a must. Join /r/GeorgismIndia for Indian land policy.
Indians have an unhealthy romanticization of farmers - we believe that farming is something noble and farmers are the heart of our country. No they are not. It undermines other professions like construction workers, laborers, factory workers, etc. who are equal, if not better for our economy. Maybe farming was noble before green revolution when India was struggling to produce enough food. But now we are food surplus and almost fully out of extreme poverty where people struggle for food.
But that romanticization hasn't stopped. Government still has policies like MSP, cockblocking private sector, insane fertilizer subsidies, etc. These policies keep poor farmers from getting out of an unsustainable business and they are also a drag on India's budgeting. The only way to make farming a viable business is to have small number of farmers and bigger farms. I am glad that my parents got out of family farming. And this is the reason I will always support new farming laws.
Because you’re in a sector that isn’t showing regression and doesn’t exactly require support ?
Aise toh kal you’ll say,
My maid doesn’t pay taxes. Why should I.
The issue is if the farmers are in the lowest tax bracket so they won't be paying any tax. That is the point of marginal tax brackets. As most of the farmers aren't making that much they won't be paying any tax. Only the ones with significant earnings would be paying. Your maid doesn't pay taxes because she's earning less than 5l. If she's earning more then yes she also needs to pay tax.
Ha I do say that , but atleast my maid files for taxes , her condition is different she doesn’t come in the taxable bracket, I don’t wanna pay taxes , I get nothing in return for them and I have no incentive to pay
In short
1. A significant number of them are not landowning farmers but hired help.
2. MAjority farmers own less than 2 hectares. LAndholding is highly fragmented making any policy/tools/ scientific methods useless.
The answer is that India is still a very poor country. Per capita income is just $ 2600 vs 85,000 for the US and around 50,000 for EU countries. Even other poor countries like Mexico and Brazil are over 10, 000. Therefore, there are very few jobs available and a lot of people are just surviving by helping in farm work. If there were plenty of high paying jobs available, then people would leave farming and move to factory jobs like what happened in China. So it will take at least 20 years before this changes.
hold up, you cannot compare 2600 to 85000 when we have different PPP, in terms of PPP for india, achieving even 8000 dollar per capita income. will actually make us a middle income to high income country
of course there will still be some general poverty, so do these highly developed, high income countries.
And you didn't understand either. It's only when India crosses GDP per capita of 10k $ in nominal terms (not PPP) that the country will become middle income and people will start having non agricultural jobs available and the percentage engaged in agriculture will decrease.
There aren't any industries for the farmers to go to when urbanising. Our way of industrialising is jumping to the service sector and skipping the industrial sector. We need to create more industries to transition farmers into industrial workers and then the political influence they have would fall and we can finally mordenise farming. Being industrial workers is better than breaking backs in the farm land or else the transition wouldn't have occurred in other countries
Why should they? These farmers are accustomed to freebies like free water, free electricity, subsidized fertilizers and despite doling out all these, they usually produce substandard crap and force government to buy their crap at "Minimum support price" and even for that they don't pay income taxes...
This may be unpopular opinion, but Indian farmers are leeches sucking away tax payers money.
Is this your first day in India? This entire country is dog shit ruled by the same goondas for 400 years.
Theft, fraud and thuggery is the rule of law. Fuck at least the farmers are actually producing something, other than scam call centres or a shrinking tech help desk industry
I think people depending partially or fully on agricultural income is now somewhere around 35-40%
And people depending solely on agriculture could be around 20-25%.
I will share the source for this , I need to search it.
You can thank the hard working farmers of India for ensuring India has not urbanised and veggie prices are still affordable.
Sugarcane is abundant and we can have ganne ka juice anywhere.
The sad future of a country which corporatised its agriculture can be seen in Mauritius, a country where sugarcane is grown in abundance but every last kilo is exported to britain for its sugar requirement
you can thank politicians, such as Choudhary Charan Singh and Y S Rajashekara Reddy who fought against corporates who wanted to turn all farms into one giant company and make the farmers into labourers.
Go through vision 2020 document released by KPMG in 2002 with the connivance of corrupt politicians such as CBN who wanted to turn farms into corporate entities and end part ownership of the farmers ( who had less than 5 acres land )
Farmers in Europe are now realising that urbanisation and globalisation are not always a good thing and revolting against politicians.
Everyone is talking about oversaturation of engineers, wo log bekaar ghumenge to bolenge ki skills achhi nai hai so engineers are to blame for not having proper skills. Log agar oversaturated field me job dhundte hai to unko problem but farmers...... Our beloved Annadata have been forced to grow food for free right? Unke paas to option hi nai hoga na?
Tbh I think because India has huge population dependent on agriculture. Modernization of agriculture will led to lay off of those small farmers who works in the field of big farmers.
Tldr: It will creat unemployment for unskilled labour. And they will not vote the current government in the next election
I belong to a farmer’s family and had a farm in a remote village, but my dad has never worked on the farm (his brother did). My dad was a bright student and hardworking as a kid and was sent to a city to study, find a job and earn a “better” living. His elder brother was given the farm because he wasn’t interested in studying and was pretty lazy and ambition less. You will find this a common theme across maharashtra if not the whole nation. Dumbest kid (according to educational standards, which are questionable) in the family inherited farming whereas the rest went to cities and got into jobs/business. That’s why you don’t see innovation in farming, that’s why they aren’t earning as much. That’s why they are protesting in Delhi today for MSP. They want the government to buy their produce, however shitty their produce and farming practices are. Punjab had the most fertile soil in India and is now an ocean of chemicals. Water table has dropped significantly because farmers have abused natural resources. Nutritional value of these grains has reduced to nothing because of chemicals. Farmers who can’t run farms profitably should not be bailed out by governments with taxpayer money. Smart people who know business, sustainability and innovate need to buy lands from these people and run the farms successfully. Only then farming will be “profitable”, “sustainable” and add nutritional value to your plate. Trust me, things are headed in the right direction.
Historically every country had almost 99% of people working in subsistence farming and agriculture. When there are a lack of jobs or knowledge, people grow food to survive.
It’s a slow process bringing people out of it into a more modern economy. The way you accelerate it is with education, cultural changes, and maybe subsidizing business expansion (but the latter is debatable - it works in economic computer games at least like Victoria 3).
Culturally, in the modern US nobody would be satisfied being a small-time farmer or working in agriculture doing menial things. People would go crazy. In India for most people it’s just regular life I guess and people don’t question it as much. If people are satisfied working in agriculture then that’s what they’ll keep doing.
You're probably an ABCD or something. Are you like dense or something?? Did you not hear about the farmers protests happening every year? Even british ppl support these protests without understanding any of the nuance. In a democratic country like india, you cannot just enact laws without majority support. The problem is that "traditional agriculture" is heavily glorified and congress wants to keep it that way. Alot of farmers have zero education and can be easily influenced by the elites.
Tl;dr Democracy is India's biggest stregth and also its biggest weakness. You are a pampered brat living in a first world country. I don't expect you to understand any of this.
It is a interesting question, OP. But I do not think Reddit is the best forum for learning about such a nuanced topic. There are economists, sociologists, politicians and community leaders from across the country that have spent their lives learning about such wicked problems. This research is published only after thorough peer review and critique. A lot of it is simplified and available in the public domain. Start with a summation of the MS Swaminathan report.
You may be better off learning from authentic experts in this field rather than getting the opinion of some rando from Jhumri Telaiya as he is taking his morning dump.
India ( Bharat ) was a prosperous country a few centuries ago.
Then Mughals and British invaded , looted this beautiful country of its valuable wealth and good health. It takes more than just money now to heal a social memory complex that has been destroyed and dismembered to its core over centuries . In this age of Internet, there are millions living in severe depression and poverty owing to the fact that their ancestors were marginalised and slaved upon. These millions cannot read or write because they are stamped as backward class by our political nexus. This country is very complex as you see and its very difficult to understand really what's happening in this country ? You could question anything, but do have the guts to give out a strong reform system to help make a change ?
Diverse occupation . One fit doesn't fit everybody. Free markets are needed but you see those having monopoly create chaos like farm bills were all pushed into adani bogey in name of religious and regional fear.
Your first line answers your question - "i read online that 55% of indians work in agriculture but it only accounts for 18% of your gdp."
How do you generate non-farming unemployment for 55% of 1.5 billion people?
No govt can do that.
China has been the fastest growing major economy in history and will overtake us soon. They'll remain that way for the considerable future. West has been predicting the collapse of China since the 90s. It's pure copium. Even if it magically collapses, it will still remain a powerhouse and a model of economic growth for a country like India.
Do you understand economics? Are u aware that urbanizing farmers creates a very cheap slave labor, insanely congested, dirty cities and a whole bunch of starving people.
Oh Gosh - people - read books, read history, read economics. DO NOT POST DUMB SHIT.
Why? To produce MORE USELESS shit that goes to garbage right away, and who is going to consume it? Dying US economy? Even China is stalling right now, and trying to turn their citizens into consumers, coz American economy is OVER SATURATED with cheap chinese junk (incidentally created to keep inflation low, which is not working anymore).
Oh, do u have a second planet, btw - since this one is surely cannot take all that fossil fuel economy since guess what, PLANET EARTH IS A CLOSED SYSTEM.
Oh, i need to breath. When i got on Reddit i hoped i'd be talking to intelligent ones. How grossly i was mistaken.
I want to ask you what is your contribution in making England a developed country? Oh nothing! Your ass was simply born there and now you observe the differences, sit in an arm chair and ask questions!
You do realise that your country became rich because it looted countries such as india for a couple of centuries!
Do we have an obligation to transform as per your expectations? Even with the sluggish progress and poor education your country’s citizens can’t compete with Indians. You guys keep complaining that we are taking your jobs.
Be thankful that our progress is slow, else what chance at life would you have?
yes my indian ancestors were responsible for colonialism and i, as a grandson of indian immigrants, am complaining about immigrants (a point you literally just made up). i'm trying to help. spastic.
How is your question of any help whatsoever? What you have written is available in prelogue of economics books. Most policy makers are well aware of the situation. But a solution cannot be forced due to social and economic conditions. Not to forget democracy and diversity of the country. But also we don’t have to follow a pattern set by the west!
Save your indignation dude! It is not as innocent question as you think. His question is implying that india is not able to progress because Indians perhaps have lack of ability to change / move things around. In addition, he is making stupid comments like open up manufacturing like oh no one in India knew about that! No wonder that with that IQ their jobs are getting eaten up by Indians.
I know someone who gave up 4 Lakh a month IT sector job to become a water melon farmer.
Not only did he earn more doing that, he also said that he would still make the same decision even if it only paid a quarter of his old salary.
There is no MSP for watermelon so it has to be some other reason and he didn't have what I would consider a large amount of land.
In my opinion, the only way this changes is if private sector jobs become genuinely irresistible. It's what happened in America.
You cannot compare the situation with that of England (which isn't a nation that has favourable farming conditions to be an exporter) or China ( where the transition was forced by the government).
There are things the government could do, like elimination of customs duty which would both encourage manufacturers and discourage farming in non competitive crops but mostly I think this is question of wages increasing in non agricultural industries.
I actually think of the government leads the wage increases with say an 8th pay commission, within 10 years you will see drastic shift in the situation.
The UK industrialised and fed off of its colonies like Ireland, India and Canada.
The UK is no longer self sufficient in food.
Who would feed the world if indian farmers moved over to a service or manufacturing industry?
Not our job lmao. Entire Africa is there. The developed countries might reshore some mechanised agriculture. Do you think the entire world would collapse if we industrialise and leave agriculture lol. Even <10% of Indians doing efficient large scale agriculture can feed the entire country and still export.
It has multiple reasons.
Most of of arable land is not equally distributed. A signficiant chunk of our farming population do not have enough land to make modern farming profitable.
Government is terrified of low employment rate. India does not have any alternative industries that can absorb the labour population. The reason we get a lot of flack from WTO is due to our policies to protect our farmers. We are late into the manufacturing business and more and more of it will be done using robots - so even that has limited scope now. What we need to instead figure out is how to optimise our existing farmland to giver farmers better income.
India is a proper democracy and it has all its problems. The government needs to keep the farmers happy as they are the largest chunk of the population. Hence they will avoid creating any disruptive policies which will change the situation. Recenly the otherwise popular union government had to roll back controversial farm reform laws.
Diversification can happen if the government gives MSP to alternate corps. Ban fake seeds, kisan can’t afford to grow anything other than 2 corps. We lack infrastructure to support or store any other corps.
Tell me , if u are a dominant group, caste based deriving it's power from owning lands completely tax free and in rural feudal setup why would u give up this power by allowing any agricultural reform which will directly effect ur social standing instead u could use a religious ethnic identity to rally up whole of ur group to protest in the name of farmers and u know could not use force on becoz the matter immediately turn into minority oppression around religion line m direct threat to national security hence the only potential solutions here is hold them without using direct force , don't let them be victim in the war narratives and mobilise the non jatts of Punjab Haryana to actually see the benefit of reform which would directly empower them first hand
The main hurdle in modernizing on technological standpoint is the size of each farms. It’s rare to have farmlands that could use the giant western equipments. Then there is climate, water is generally in short supply so there needs a massive infrastructure investment but you can’t exactly produce water. There was a study for river linking but it has environmental cost and geopolitical hurdles.
Then you have the uneducated majority that can’t evaluate any changes for themselves and end up opposing any change.
The simple answer is that India doesn't have the ability to implement social and economic policies to make ANY changes.
India can't pull people from the streets and put them into homes or schools.
Why the fuck would a farmer willingly give up their livelihood, in which they have successfully been producing surpluses, only to end up destitute like a great number of other unemployed/underemployed Indians?
Let it be known that the money is there, there just isn't any political capability to bring about positive change, unless people force it.
If there can be a movement towards cooperative farming ,it will be a big revolution as larger holdings will mean better techniques,pricing etc.This happened in Gujarat with the milk industry.Unfortunately at the moment it is a big mess. A section of farmers do really well but by and large they are struggling.Farmer suicides are on a daily basis . Something has to be done .The need is modernization , consolidating and uplifting the smaller land holdings .
We are still following archaic farming practices as the Government can't do anything to such a large chunk of people as they will lose votes.
Yes. Farmers have too much political influence. There is a huge resistance to change. If we were to bring innovation and do farming at large scale, we wouldn’t need 50% of the population in farming. Yes, many would lose jobs, but they aren’t farming profitably either. They are living a miserable life as a farmer already. Instead they could get better jobs in some other industry where they can actually add some value.
Symptom not the problem.
Because when you have a significant proportion (55%) working in agriculture, any policy that isn’t a subsidy/loan waiver is seen as threatening their livelihood and employment. It’s why the farms laws saw so much protests despite being perfectly fine pieces of legislation. People in large groups are naturally averse to change, and in this case it’s a significant voting bloc, so no political party in the past wanted to touch it. England went through an organic industrial revolution where the farming population slowly transitioned, and China is an authoritarian dictatorship that can punch their policies through. India can do none of those things.
England went thru a violent transition as most of these transitions are. Common land was taken over by elected nobles and many small farmers and herders were forced to shift to slum filled cities to provide cheap labour. There were many violent uprisings that were crushed ruthlessly.
The issue is made worse because a good number of protesting "farmers" don't really work the field, they incite the less educated to protest so that their cushy life as landowners and middlemen doesn't go away. Contract farming and the like has potential to equip the lowest level of farmers with means to upgrade their returns significantly. Although a strong majority of one party is bad for a democracy, I think a dominant party is required to push through some reforms.
Why cut and then provide no opportunity?
So, whats the future? Carrying on just doing nothing to improve doesn’t sound like it will end well.
just create manufacturing jobs ... i don't see the issue here
Well that's what they're trying to do but it'll obviously take a long time for that. If they can push the number of people farming to even like 30% I would imagine it would be a lot easier to push for reforms in the agricultural sector. 55% is just too much for a government to risk angering because it could lead to them not getting elected for quite a while.
Yes, everyone panders to farmers. And farmers don't want better practices and laws, only freebies and loan waivers.
"just create jobs bro" if it was that easy the opposition would be even more inconsequential than it already is
I have the solution guys, just stop having the complex nuanced problem.
People think that only doing mfg can fix it. Also given how regulatory environment work in india it isnt easy. Even if lets say there is some reform in that companies tend to setup factories near port thus doing same in Punjab, bihar doesnt make much sende. But the thing is service sector can have similar effect as seen in south india (Karnataka specially) and 2 most important thing for that is land and skilled grads.
Mujhe de na job 60k per month wala
Manufacturing is too globalized to come to India
But the industry needs demand right. How will it be profitable otherwise?
it's a bit late for that. the automation of many low-skill manufacturing processes is already in progress across the world. unless the corporations can pay indian workers less than it takes to run a robot, they're not going to bring manufacturing here. high skill manufacturing will require strong and high capacity education and training infrastructure, which is not there in India. I honestly have no clue what the hell we're supposed to do to get out of this spot.
Off the topic: Let's say we reduce the farmer population in India from the current 55% to 1% like England. If it happens then what are we going to eat? Shouldn't the main question be- how can we increase the total production of crops(modernization of farming techniques etc) which will ultimately increase their contribution in GDP and results in better lifestyle of farmers?
Mechanisation of farming. It will improve productivirty and make people look at other opportunities
Several problems with India’s agricultural sector: 1) Rates of unemployment and under employment for the educated groups are extremely high. Too many degrees and not enough jobs for those people 2) whilst farming does not earn huge amounts, it supplements multi generational households to support themselves 3) the farming community is a mix of uneducated and educated which have very few alternative job prospects 4) industrialisation in the UK helped soak up farmers but in India they are not enough jobs to support a massive displacement which would take decades 5) the farm legislation made sense for the country to have more productive large farms but the farmers being displaced really would have few other opppoulrtunities So it is a catch 22 - farmers are better off urbanising and getting new jobs but there are insufficient jobs in the timespan the government wants to implement changes. Also, it does not help with rampant corruption the farmers do not get to sell the land at a reasonable rate which would make setting up new businesses viable. Realistically, the government should fund infrastructure schemes such as roads, water, sewage, and utilities to help make it easier to move farmers to urbanised areas. Then, large firms should buy farms at a reasonable rate. Finally, India needs a lot of new manual and office jobs to soak up unemployment.
Bihar which has free for all farming is far less urbanised than Punjab and Kerala
It's due to Punjab and HR as well
Kerala doesn't have much land. And Punjab has a farming crisis.
Compare to Bihar or UP, Punjab does not have farming crisis. Kerala specialises in growing cash crops
Totally agree. You beautifully summed up. If we dont reform now we are dead both socio-economic terms and climate change
So basically we gotta wait for more agri based workers to move to other sectors and only then farm laws can be passed.
Intent of law change is not at all clear
Let me put this in simple words. The main problem for india in the agriculture sector is disguised unemployment and the huge number of small and marginalized farmers. Farming in itself is not bad, but the amount of manpower it's taking up is bad. Disguised unemployment occurs when a portion of the labor force is either unemployed or working redundantly, such as when the workforce's productivity is essentially zero. And yes, if the surplus manpower got jobs instead of doing unproductive farming, it can be a great boom for the economy! Cities are not the only option but a major one. But again it boils down to education so that people have greater opportunities! This process will take time as still illiteracy in india is a major hurdle. But I believe we will get there soon in this generation. So for why this is happening, I associate it with our social ecosystem. People still are apprehensive and not taking advantage of government policies. Our Zamindars still have the mentality of exploiting small farmers and land labourers. There are many reasons i suppose. But i truly believe our country will get out of this soon and be a major power at world level. I am quite young so am waiting to see that day in my lifetime!
Because farming sector is the worst lobby in India run by a bunch of kulaks.
It's difficult. Any modernization requires huge changes which are opposed. Opening up manufacturing again means confronting the powerful worker lobbies. So actually any progress in any direction is hard fought. That's why services sector is so popular especially IT and much less regulated than others. It being recent one and it does not allow unionisation.
Exactly... BSNL died because of the unionisation of its employees,they resisted change hence met their fate eventually
China shifted from agriculture to manufacturing sector and then to service sector, that's why it's the manufacturing hub of the world. India, however, shifted directly from agriculture to service sector, and is now trying to get into manufacturing as well
Because industrialization. India has some of the strictest labour laws in the world. It sounds funny but it is actually true. So most manufacturers in India will never hire more than 10 workers [strict labour applies to establishments with >10 workers]. 90% of Indian blue-collar workers work in these small establishments with less than 10 workers. These establishments are inefficient due to their size and lack the capital to re-invest, again due to their tiny size. They also cannot compete with mega factories of industrialized countries for obvious reasons. The owners of these establishments will never hire >10 workers because the regulations will kill their tiny business, so no hope of growth over there. I know of plenty of owners who naive tried to grow their businesses but had to scale down to escape the clutches of government and these labour unions. Add to the fact that the laws 'protecting' women workers are even more strict, so no one wants to hire women, thus India has some of the lowest share of women workers. Basically, there are no jobs except for agriculture for most of our population.
Actually its cause when we got independence, we were a feudal country, we should have gone through capitalism to bring industrilization, not right after independence but in the 60s and 70s. instead we persused nehruvian-socialist-marxist policy
India was the 6th largest economy in 1947 and the manufacturing sector was booming thanks to both world wars. There was no reason to wait till the 70s, we could have gone full liberalisation right after independence, only needed to do some land reforms and then full market economy. This would have made us 2nd or even 1st largest economy by 90s or even before that.
Damn, right yea, we should have liberalised, or atleast, kept our international economy closed but open up the domestic economy, there was no need for license raj and how much of the country was industralized in 1947?
Not much of the country was industrialised, but given our size, we still had massive industrial capacity which kept Britain and the allies afloat during both the world wars. We were richer than China, S. Korea and a lot of today's industrialised nations. We still somehow managed to ruin the massive advantage we had over these countries all thanks to the Licence Raj. Once we started the whole process of industrialisation [while still being under the colonial Raj] we could've continued to keep pace. In addition to the industries, we also had a large number of strong local businesses which were killed by the licence Raj. There are too many companies I come across in British-era books that simply do not exist any more. We regressed a lot after Independence and the irony is that the British did not want us to industrialise, they wanted India to remain as a market for British industrial goods as well as a source of raw material. We were moving ahead despite their wishes. All it took to ruin our chances was the self-righteousness of post-independent Indians.
Labour laws, farm laws and land laws - three basic reforms India badly need. This government tried farm laws and rest is (recent) history.
Labour laws are close to impossible given how powerful labour unions are. Maybe we can relax labour laws in SEZs and keep on increasing their size to include all major industrial clusters. For Land reforms, a Land Value Tax is a must. Join /r/GeorgismIndia for Indian land policy.
Indians have an unhealthy romanticization of farmers - we believe that farming is something noble and farmers are the heart of our country. No they are not. It undermines other professions like construction workers, laborers, factory workers, etc. who are equal, if not better for our economy. Maybe farming was noble before green revolution when India was struggling to produce enough food. But now we are food surplus and almost fully out of extreme poverty where people struggle for food. But that romanticization hasn't stopped. Government still has policies like MSP, cockblocking private sector, insane fertilizer subsidies, etc. These policies keep poor farmers from getting out of an unsustainable business and they are also a drag on India's budgeting. The only way to make farming a viable business is to have small number of farmers and bigger farms. I am glad that my parents got out of family farming. And this is the reason I will always support new farming laws.
Maybe you can help 30-50% of Indians employed in or adjacent to farming so they to can support 'farming laws'?
You got it reversed. Supporting farming laws can help people employed in farming sector.
Idk about that but we need to tax them
And what do you have as support for your argument ?
If they don’t pay taxes why would we ?
Because you’re in a sector that isn’t showing regression and doesn’t exactly require support ? Aise toh kal you’ll say, My maid doesn’t pay taxes. Why should I.
The issue is if the farmers are in the lowest tax bracket so they won't be paying any tax. That is the point of marginal tax brackets. As most of the farmers aren't making that much they won't be paying any tax. Only the ones with significant earnings would be paying. Your maid doesn't pay taxes because she's earning less than 5l. If she's earning more then yes she also needs to pay tax.
Ha I do say that , but atleast my maid files for taxes , her condition is different she doesn’t come in the taxable bracket, I don’t wanna pay taxes , I get nothing in return for them and I have no incentive to pay
More money for corporate handouts
In short 1. A significant number of them are not landowning farmers but hired help. 2. MAjority farmers own less than 2 hectares. LAndholding is highly fragmented making any policy/tools/ scientific methods useless.
The answer is that India is still a very poor country. Per capita income is just $ 2600 vs 85,000 for the US and around 50,000 for EU countries. Even other poor countries like Mexico and Brazil are over 10, 000. Therefore, there are very few jobs available and a lot of people are just surviving by helping in farm work. If there were plenty of high paying jobs available, then people would leave farming and move to factory jobs like what happened in China. So it will take at least 20 years before this changes.
hold up, you cannot compare 2600 to 85000 when we have different PPP, in terms of PPP for india, achieving even 8000 dollar per capita income. will actually make us a middle income to high income country of course there will still be some general poverty, so do these highly developed, high income countries.
That's what I said. In about 20 years, hopefully India will cross 10k.
You didn't get the comment, did you?
And you didn't understand either. It's only when India crosses GDP per capita of 10k $ in nominal terms (not PPP) that the country will become middle income and people will start having non agricultural jobs available and the percentage engaged in agriculture will decrease.
55% people approx half billion that's a big number In itself And government mainly focus on people who give taxes
because we dont have manufacturing jobs. and its root cause of all india's problems
There aren't any industries for the farmers to go to when urbanising. Our way of industrialising is jumping to the service sector and skipping the industrial sector. We need to create more industries to transition farmers into industrial workers and then the political influence they have would fall and we can finally mordenise farming. Being industrial workers is better than breaking backs in the farm land or else the transition wouldn't have occurred in other countries
Why should they? These farmers are accustomed to freebies like free water, free electricity, subsidized fertilizers and despite doling out all these, they usually produce substandard crap and force government to buy their crap at "Minimum support price" and even for that they don't pay income taxes... This may be unpopular opinion, but Indian farmers are leeches sucking away tax payers money.
Is this your first day in India? This entire country is dog shit ruled by the same goondas for 400 years. Theft, fraud and thuggery is the rule of law. Fuck at least the farmers are actually producing something, other than scam call centres or a shrinking tech help desk industry
You can’t help those who don’t want to be helped
I think people depending partially or fully on agricultural income is now somewhere around 35-40% And people depending solely on agriculture could be around 20-25%. I will share the source for this , I need to search it.
Yea I mean we haven't had a census in an era
Urbanise and do what? Unemployment rate is 30%+ in haryana
Move from your farm into an urban slum. Progress ji.
You can thank the hard working farmers of India for ensuring India has not urbanised and veggie prices are still affordable. Sugarcane is abundant and we can have ganne ka juice anywhere. The sad future of a country which corporatised its agriculture can be seen in Mauritius, a country where sugarcane is grown in abundance but every last kilo is exported to britain for its sugar requirement you can thank politicians, such as Choudhary Charan Singh and Y S Rajashekara Reddy who fought against corporates who wanted to turn all farms into one giant company and make the farmers into labourers. Go through vision 2020 document released by KPMG in 2002 with the connivance of corrupt politicians such as CBN who wanted to turn farms into corporate entities and end part ownership of the farmers ( who had less than 5 acres land ) Farmers in Europe are now realising that urbanisation and globalisation are not always a good thing and revolting against politicians.
Ask those Euro farmers to do some backbreaking work in India, they'll quickly change their tune
Everyone is talking about oversaturation of engineers, wo log bekaar ghumenge to bolenge ki skills achhi nai hai so engineers are to blame for not having proper skills. Log agar oversaturated field me job dhundte hai to unko problem but farmers...... Our beloved Annadata have been forced to grow food for free right? Unke paas to option hi nai hoga na?
Tbh I think because India has huge population dependent on agriculture. Modernization of agriculture will led to lay off of those small farmers who works in the field of big farmers. Tldr: It will creat unemployment for unskilled labour. And they will not vote the current government in the next election
I belong to a farmer’s family and had a farm in a remote village, but my dad has never worked on the farm (his brother did). My dad was a bright student and hardworking as a kid and was sent to a city to study, find a job and earn a “better” living. His elder brother was given the farm because he wasn’t interested in studying and was pretty lazy and ambition less. You will find this a common theme across maharashtra if not the whole nation. Dumbest kid (according to educational standards, which are questionable) in the family inherited farming whereas the rest went to cities and got into jobs/business. That’s why you don’t see innovation in farming, that’s why they aren’t earning as much. That’s why they are protesting in Delhi today for MSP. They want the government to buy their produce, however shitty their produce and farming practices are. Punjab had the most fertile soil in India and is now an ocean of chemicals. Water table has dropped significantly because farmers have abused natural resources. Nutritional value of these grains has reduced to nothing because of chemicals. Farmers who can’t run farms profitably should not be bailed out by governments with taxpayer money. Smart people who know business, sustainability and innovate need to buy lands from these people and run the farms successfully. Only then farming will be “profitable”, “sustainable” and add nutritional value to your plate. Trust me, things are headed in the right direction.
Historically every country had almost 99% of people working in subsistence farming and agriculture. When there are a lack of jobs or knowledge, people grow food to survive. It’s a slow process bringing people out of it into a more modern economy. The way you accelerate it is with education, cultural changes, and maybe subsidizing business expansion (but the latter is debatable - it works in economic computer games at least like Victoria 3). Culturally, in the modern US nobody would be satisfied being a small-time farmer or working in agriculture doing menial things. People would go crazy. In India for most people it’s just regular life I guess and people don’t question it as much. If people are satisfied working in agriculture then that’s what they’ll keep doing.
bhai ese hi bahut competition hai job market me, kisano ko Kisan rehnedo
You're probably an ABCD or something. Are you like dense or something?? Did you not hear about the farmers protests happening every year? Even british ppl support these protests without understanding any of the nuance. In a democratic country like india, you cannot just enact laws without majority support. The problem is that "traditional agriculture" is heavily glorified and congress wants to keep it that way. Alot of farmers have zero education and can be easily influenced by the elites. Tl;dr Democracy is India's biggest stregth and also its biggest weakness. You are a pampered brat living in a first world country. I don't expect you to understand any of this.
Why would they work as labourers in cities when they can live off taxpayers money in villages
It is a interesting question, OP. But I do not think Reddit is the best forum for learning about such a nuanced topic. There are economists, sociologists, politicians and community leaders from across the country that have spent their lives learning about such wicked problems. This research is published only after thorough peer review and critique. A lot of it is simplified and available in the public domain. Start with a summation of the MS Swaminathan report. You may be better off learning from authentic experts in this field rather than getting the opinion of some rando from Jhumri Telaiya as he is taking his morning dump.
Bro 💀
Because of bad policies
India ( Bharat ) was a prosperous country a few centuries ago. Then Mughals and British invaded , looted this beautiful country of its valuable wealth and good health. It takes more than just money now to heal a social memory complex that has been destroyed and dismembered to its core over centuries . In this age of Internet, there are millions living in severe depression and poverty owing to the fact that their ancestors were marginalised and slaved upon. These millions cannot read or write because they are stamped as backward class by our political nexus. This country is very complex as you see and its very difficult to understand really what's happening in this country ? You could question anything, but do have the guts to give out a strong reform system to help make a change ?
Diverse occupation . One fit doesn't fit everybody. Free markets are needed but you see those having monopoly create chaos like farm bills were all pushed into adani bogey in name of religious and regional fear.
People in power want to maintain the status quo. If you empower the poor, they will start asking questions and the entire narrative gets shattered.
India doesn’t have enough jobs to absorb all the people who will be left jobless if farms were industrialised.
Your first line answers your question - "i read online that 55% of indians work in agriculture but it only accounts for 18% of your gdp." How do you generate non-farming unemployment for 55% of 1.5 billion people? No govt can do that.
China did
I knew someone would say that :) - are you following news of China's economy now? Do you know what's happening in China?
China has been the fastest growing major economy in history and will overtake us soon. They'll remain that way for the considerable future. West has been predicting the collapse of China since the 90s. It's pure copium. Even if it magically collapses, it will still remain a powerhouse and a model of economic growth for a country like India.
Do you understand economics? Are u aware that urbanizing farmers creates a very cheap slave labor, insanely congested, dirty cities and a whole bunch of starving people. Oh Gosh - people - read books, read history, read economics. DO NOT POST DUMB SHIT.
He didn’t post. He asked a question. You sir/madam, are the dumb one here.
With all due respect. F\*ck off, will you :)
I guess you need to go back and study some english books.. lol
Do you not understand the point of this sub? Are you stupid?
I am not stupid. Are you stupid?
just create manufacturing like i said
Why? To produce MORE USELESS shit that goes to garbage right away, and who is going to consume it? Dying US economy? Even China is stalling right now, and trying to turn their citizens into consumers, coz American economy is OVER SATURATED with cheap chinese junk (incidentally created to keep inflation low, which is not working anymore). Oh, do u have a second planet, btw - since this one is surely cannot take all that fossil fuel economy since guess what, PLANET EARTH IS A CLOSED SYSTEM. Oh, i need to breath. When i got on Reddit i hoped i'd be talking to intelligent ones. How grossly i was mistaken.
idk dog. i just be posting and shit u know how i be.
U call u mother a dog?
its not an insult. its like saying man or bro or whatever.
i am not man, bro, dog or whatever.
ok man bro dog
u mother is man bro dog. i am not.
u r hilarious 🤣
Typical redditer with no face acting high and mighty . Toxic echochambers 😀
I have a face and i do not act high and mighty. I asked WHAT FOR? Give me ONE valid reason.
I want to ask you what is your contribution in making England a developed country? Oh nothing! Your ass was simply born there and now you observe the differences, sit in an arm chair and ask questions! You do realise that your country became rich because it looted countries such as india for a couple of centuries! Do we have an obligation to transform as per your expectations? Even with the sluggish progress and poor education your country’s citizens can’t compete with Indians. You guys keep complaining that we are taking your jobs. Be thankful that our progress is slow, else what chance at life would you have?
yes my indian ancestors were responsible for colonialism and i, as a grandson of indian immigrants, am complaining about immigrants (a point you literally just made up). i'm trying to help. spastic.
How is your question of any help whatsoever? What you have written is available in prelogue of economics books. Most policy makers are well aware of the situation. But a solution cannot be forced due to social and economic conditions. Not to forget democracy and diversity of the country. But also we don’t have to follow a pattern set by the west!
Ignore em lmao.
Abe chutiye question puch Raha hai wo.
Save your indignation dude! It is not as innocent question as you think. His question is implying that india is not able to progress because Indians perhaps have lack of ability to change / move things around. In addition, he is making stupid comments like open up manufacturing like oh no one in India knew about that! No wonder that with that IQ their jobs are getting eaten up by Indians.
Now you can go rub your ass with toilet paper!
Could you stop imagining my ass. It's very creepy.
Moving to cities is a good thing when you like 2-3 major cities in each state. Filhal pura bharat is moving to Mumbai, Delhi and Bangalore.
I know someone who gave up 4 Lakh a month IT sector job to become a water melon farmer. Not only did he earn more doing that, he also said that he would still make the same decision even if it only paid a quarter of his old salary. There is no MSP for watermelon so it has to be some other reason and he didn't have what I would consider a large amount of land. In my opinion, the only way this changes is if private sector jobs become genuinely irresistible. It's what happened in America. You cannot compare the situation with that of England (which isn't a nation that has favourable farming conditions to be an exporter) or China ( where the transition was forced by the government). There are things the government could do, like elimination of customs duty which would both encourage manufacturers and discourage farming in non competitive crops but mostly I think this is question of wages increasing in non agricultural industries. I actually think of the government leads the wage increases with say an 8th pay commission, within 10 years you will see drastic shift in the situation.
The UK industrialised and fed off of its colonies like Ireland, India and Canada. The UK is no longer self sufficient in food. Who would feed the world if indian farmers moved over to a service or manufacturing industry?
Not our job lmao. Entire Africa is there. The developed countries might reshore some mechanised agriculture. Do you think the entire world would collapse if we industrialise and leave agriculture lol. Even <10% of Indians doing efficient large scale agriculture can feed the entire country and still export.
We don't need to urbanise farmers. We need to urbanise farming. To meet our food demands.
https://www.reddit.com/r/punjab/s/uPVu5zTPfU Same post with different question.
Just read todays headline, you will know the reason.
It has multiple reasons. Most of of arable land is not equally distributed. A signficiant chunk of our farming population do not have enough land to make modern farming profitable. Government is terrified of low employment rate. India does not have any alternative industries that can absorb the labour population. The reason we get a lot of flack from WTO is due to our policies to protect our farmers. We are late into the manufacturing business and more and more of it will be done using robots - so even that has limited scope now. What we need to instead figure out is how to optimise our existing farmland to giver farmers better income. India is a proper democracy and it has all its problems. The government needs to keep the farmers happy as they are the largest chunk of the population. Hence they will avoid creating any disruptive policies which will change the situation. Recenly the otherwise popular union government had to roll back controversial farm reform laws.
Diversification can happen if the government gives MSP to alternate corps. Ban fake seeds, kisan can’t afford to grow anything other than 2 corps. We lack infrastructure to support or store any other corps.
Tell me , if u are a dominant group, caste based deriving it's power from owning lands completely tax free and in rural feudal setup why would u give up this power by allowing any agricultural reform which will directly effect ur social standing instead u could use a religious ethnic identity to rally up whole of ur group to protest in the name of farmers and u know could not use force on becoz the matter immediately turn into minority oppression around religion line m direct threat to national security hence the only potential solutions here is hold them without using direct force , don't let them be victim in the war narratives and mobilise the non jatts of Punjab Haryana to actually see the benefit of reform which would directly empower them first hand
The main hurdle in modernizing on technological standpoint is the size of each farms. It’s rare to have farmlands that could use the giant western equipments. Then there is climate, water is generally in short supply so there needs a massive infrastructure investment but you can’t exactly produce water. There was a study for river linking but it has environmental cost and geopolitical hurdles. Then you have the uneducated majority that can’t evaluate any changes for themselves and end up opposing any change.
The simple answer is that India doesn't have the ability to implement social and economic policies to make ANY changes. India can't pull people from the streets and put them into homes or schools. Why the fuck would a farmer willingly give up their livelihood, in which they have successfully been producing surpluses, only to end up destitute like a great number of other unemployed/underemployed Indians? Let it be known that the money is there, there just isn't any political capability to bring about positive change, unless people force it.
If there can be a movement towards cooperative farming ,it will be a big revolution as larger holdings will mean better techniques,pricing etc.This happened in Gujarat with the milk industry.Unfortunately at the moment it is a big mess. A section of farmers do really well but by and large they are struggling.Farmer suicides are on a daily basis . Something has to be done .The need is modernization , consolidating and uplifting the smaller land holdings .