What it Means to be a Farmer in The 21st Century
The role of the farmer is evolving because of many factors
Two hundred years, Malthus raised a concern in his debates and predicted that as the global human population increases exponentially, food production will lag behind, leading to hunger, starvation and deaths of humans. God save! That prediction, as well as so many similar predictions of doomsday, did not materialize.
Technologies to improve the productivity of the land, longer shelf-life and distribution efficiencies to remotest parts of the world meant that food production and inventory was and is always higher than the requirement. One may still ask that there are one billion mouths that go without food every day. Even though the answer is beyond the scope of this discussion, it will be worthwhile to note this has more to do with political and economic factors.
In my opinion, farming as a profession and livelihood based occupation will be driven by two important social innovations in the 21st century.
The first social innovation is we are moving towards a surplus economy.
The indicators are as below. Our current global food production of 2.7 billion tonnes exceeds consumption of 2.5 billion tonnes of food production and there is a growing stock of food-grains to meet the increasing but stabilizing population. Our confidence is further bolstered by the technological capability to increase our productivity.
The second social innovation is we are moving towards a knowledge economy.
This is defined by two indicators. The level of knowledge based services is indicated by the household expenditure on data. As an example, India’s annual food consumption is INR 12 trillion and India’s annual voice & data consumption is INR 1.2 trillion. This is one-tenth and gradually, the latter will be more than the former.
“Truly, Man does not live by bread alone, but by every Word….”
Just as industrial revolution replaced hands with automated manufacturing, so in a knowledge economy, AI and robots replace man with robots for routine tasks, allowing man to pursue other higher order pursuits and entertainment. Here again, the doomsday prediction of jobless society will give way to increased pursuit of entertainment, arts and sciences and exploration beyond. As leisure hours increase, man will pursue other artistic and educational pursuits. The reality of Universal Basic Income will make this happen.
An effect of the social innovation that started 200 years ago is global warnings on climate change. Climate change may impact patterns of cultivation, viz. time of the year, duration of the crops, type of crops and geography of the agricultural regions.
All these social innovations and the impact of the industrial revolution will change the way farming is perceived and practiced in the 21st century. This can be summed as below:
There will be a shift from “farming as a primary activity” to “farming as an art, skill and entertainment.”
Over the centuries, farming has been considered and practiced as an occupation and a means of livelihood. With mechanization, data driven farming, AI and robotics, farming as an economic activity will be less human driven. At the same time, there will be farmers who will pursue farming not for economic gains but to connect with nature. This is similar to the period of industrialization in which industrial production of textiles and other products left crafts and crafts-persons jobless. Yet crafts have survived.
The first social innovation will result in an abundance of produce due to mechanization and robotic production. The second social innovation will result in shift to decreased working hours. Due to this, people will have more time to pursue leisurely vocational activities. Some of them may take handicrafts using miniature technologies in textiles, wood making, etc. Some of them will pursue agriculture to connect with nature. Their objective is to delight in the produce of the nature. Hence, the role of the farmer is more as an artist, who is delighted in producing aesthetic and pleasing outputs that are displayed to the world.
As an impact of climate change, agricultural production will shift to different geographies and different duration. Here, the farmer will be seen as a trustee of the land and to protect the nature from the effects of climate change by nurturing the land with crops that offset the change. For this, the farmer may very well follow the Bible, where it states that,
“For six years sow your fields, and for six years prune your vineyards and gather their crops. But in the seventh year the land is to have a year of Sabbath rest, a Sabbath to the Lord (Leviticus: 25 3–4)”.
Who is the 21st century farmer?
To summarize, a 21st century farmer is ideally the one who practices farming as an artistic and artisanal endeavor, rather than an economic activity, observes Sabbath for the land and ‘right to Nature’ as a means of sustainable development, takes delight in the abundant creativity of the land, considers farming not as a profession but as a calling, distributes the produce at a fair price through fair channels, and she undertakes knowledge based activities for her profession.
There will, of course, be mass production of agricultural commodities on an industrial scale. Side-by-side will exist our 21st century farmer-artist as a trustee of the land.
