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Reversing the social stigma for managing farm stress

3 April 2020

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By: Dr. Pawan Kumar Sharma

The Coronavirus pandemic has once again poses a series of questions to think about social stigmas prevailing in our society. The health stigma has a long history wherein people are discriminated in almost every society on planet Earth. Social stigmas originate from negative perceptions about a section of people within the same society and take the shape of discrimination in the form of gender, religion, culture, disability etc. India is no different a society and have a whole lot of list when it comes to social animosities resulted in discrimination. India is an agricultural country where more than 60% of people derive their livelihood directly or indirectly from farming by growing crops and keeping livestock. The farming therefore reflects one of the the most important aspects of society and in turn society affects farming through rituals, beliefs and social stigmas.

While discussing the most crucial stigmas associated with farming, we should think of moving away of youth from farming. Agriculture is no longer attractive to rural youths, as reported by number of studies conducted in different states of the country. The major reason behind this repulsiveness towards farming is the discriminating perception between farm and non-farm business. It poses a bigger problem for a country where youth (15-24 years) constitutes one-fifth (19.1%) of total population (Census 2011) and expected to be 34.33% of total population by 2020. So, what can we think of in terms of attracting rural youths to farming? Making farming remunerative alongwith efforts to transform farming into a business entity can help bringing glory back to agriculture. Rural youth engaged in farming has to be identified as Agripreneurs in line with entrepreneurs developed in other sectors of economy. African countries are already working hard to reverse this farming stigma by developing farmers into agrepreneurs. Krishi Vigyan Kendras in Jammu & Kashmir under the administrative control of SKUAST-Jammu and SKUAST-Kashmir are conducted skill development trainings to develop such agripreneurs in various farm disciplines affiliated by Agriculture Skill Council of India. The confidence needs to be developed among rural youths who are often forced to work on family farms so that they feel proud to be a farmer as other feel to be engineers, doctors etc. The continuous scientific interventions have made agriculture less tedious, intensive and profitable. There is a need to make more and more rural youths aware about such interventions and modalities of implementation.

This stigma has been witnessed in all the developing and underdeveloped countries which are basically agrarian and have more number of people depending on per unit of land than actually requires. Therefore, it will not be wrong to say that disguised unemployment is the main reason behind un-popularity of farming among rural youths. Other challenges in the form of unpredicted climate, rainfed conditions add to the uncertainty in agribusiness. This is the reason that majority of farmers prefer to leave farming, if given some other work (Centre for Study of Developing Societies, Delhi). 70 per cent of the respondents described climate uncertainty to be the factors responsible for making them think about leaving the farming.

Another general animosity surrounding mental illness is also affecting farming as male farmers feel the pressure of always being strong. A lot of men repress their feelings and struggle in admitting that they need help in their difficult times. Many researchers have correlated this stigma with farmers’ suicides and recommended that farmers should themselves have to overcome this mental health obstacle. Of course, Self Help Groups and other extension agencies have to interfere to make farmers understand with active participation of community as a whole. All these problems are not actually invincible.

I must mention that Bollywood in India has performed its duty by way of depicting the plight of farmers and problems faced in agricultural sector. Do Bigha Zamin (1953) showed the decay of agriculture sector due to the rise of capitalism, Mother India (1957) showed the struggle of a farm woman in sustaining her family as a head of household, Upkar (1967) was a movie which emphasized upon the involvement of educated youth in agriculture to make it profitable, Manthan (1976) depicted how farmers always think for the society and not for self alone and latest was Kissan (2009) which portrayed the case of farmers’ suicides in India.

Keeping in view the uncertainties faced by the farmers in India, Government has introduced social security schemes such as Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi and Pradhan Mantri Kisan Maan Dhan. The former provides an income support of Rs.6000/- per year to all farmer families in three equal installments of Rs. 2000/- each every four months, whereas the latter is a voluntary pension scheme for farmers belonging to age group of 18 to 40 years under which Rs. 3000/– per month will be provided after attaining the age of 60 years, with the present day monthly contribution of Rs.55 to Rs.200, depending on the age. Both the schemes are aimed at mitigating the effect of social stigmas by way of providing social security, financial support and a safety net to farmers in bad times.

In this testing time also, when entire world is facing lockdown due to the threat of COVID-19, farmers have to manage harvesting of current rabi season crop and sowing of next crop by arranging inputs. This will not be as smooth effort as it would be in the absence of threat of virus. Again, the entire country is looking at its farmers to produce enough food to sustain the lives of billions of people. The farmers only need encouragement, empathy and compassion from their countrymen to do the job. Social stigmas are difficult to break, but the efforts of all agricultural stakeholders can help making farming an attractive enterprise.

The author is Scientist (Agril. Economics), Sher-e-Kashmir University of Agricultural Sciences & Technology of Jammu (J&K)