BENGALURU: Ravikumar K S of Kuppe village in Hunsur taluk, who has a family of five, depends on farming to take care of them. However, he is not happy as he isn’t receiving any profit. He has enrolled both his sons in English medium schools in Mysuru and Hunsur so that they can find jobs in cities.
The father of two has six acres of agricultural land, on which he grows tobacco. As there is no irrigation project in place, he drilled a borewell, but the water is not at all sufficient for crops.
Pointing out at the losses, he said to grow tobacco he requires `40,000 to`50,000 per acre. In return, he gets about `75,000, but the expenses are huge for labour and transport. To make ends meet, htook a loan of `7 lakh from a gramin bank. He doesn’t know when the loan is getting waived off, and even officials at the bank say they don’t know anything about it.
Like Ravikumar, many people are giving up on agriculture, which is a declining sector. Some small farmers work as daily wage labourers in towns and cities. Many youths have been migrating to cities like Mysuru and Bengaluru in search of employment, and as a result of this, villages are turning into old age homes.
An industrialist said, “It is not a problem of just a few villages in Mysuru, but of the entire country. Agriculture needs a lot of attention and it is time for a big change. Either irrigation is required or the new system is to be adopted in agriculture to keep it alive. Within years, there will be no youths in the villages if the situation continues this way.”