Current Matters
Jammu, September 26: The economy of a state is dependent on various aspects like tourism, agriculture, water, power generation and much more and Jammu and Kashmir is also dependent on most of these things.
But agriculture and allied sectors were the most important aspect of economy of Jammu and Kashmir and people were earning handful amount of money to feed their families and meet other expenses.
For the past few years, this sector has suffered a great setback due to various reasons and it is going to affect the economy of this union territory in a long run. This has happened despite the fact that government of Jammu and Kashmir as well as government of India has been focusing on revival of agriculture in J&K.
We would like to discuss few aspects in a brief to understand what are reasons of downfall of agriculture in Jammu and Kashmir, and especially in hilly areas where the poorest of the poor people live.
Before going for the reasons, we need to understand that agriculture is a vast field which covers paddy, maize, wheat and other farming which traditionally people of this union territory have been doing and earning their livelihood. Almost everywhere paddy, maize and wheat farming was being done and people used to get rice, flour and maize from their own fields and they were not dependent on government aid and other source to feed their families. This was the time when people didn’t have enough money in hand but still they were not starving.
These people used to work on their own in the fields and bring water from near as well as far off canals for irrigation purpose and most of the times, the repair work of these irrigation canals were being done by the people and panchayats and government wasn’t bothered about it. The attention of government was being sought only when it required huge amount of money, either for making fresh canals or repairing a major part of it.
But with the passage of time, people have started to move towards luxurious life and working in the fields is considered a meager job. The new generation, the social media generation, are far away from their roots and how their parents and grandparents have been doing in the past to feed their families. They want easy money and without doing much work which is one of the biggest reasons of people getting away from agriculture. Taking plough on one shoulder and shovel on another is not considered a matter of pride any more by this generation, which want to learn from Reels and Short videos on social networking sites.
Another reason of the downfall is migration of rural population to urban areas in search of better living, advanced education for their children and better health care. Even those who are daily wagers also want their children to study in schools in cities, towns and urban areas and they don’t allow them to look towards fields in their villages where they themselves have been doing work alongwith their parents in the past. Most of the agricultural land has either been converted to concrete forest or has been left unattended for years.
The third reason which is visible in rural areas of hilly districts like Doda, Ramban, Kishtwar, Rajouri, Reasi, and parts of Kathua and Udhampur districts is that labour class has moved out of their homes to neighbouring states Himachal Pradesh and Ladakh in search of job where they get more money for their work as compared to their native areas. These people used to perform farming in their villages but since they have moved out and only women folk and elders are attending homes there is nobody to look after agriculture.
Some other reasons will be discussed in the part two of this series.
