Farming - One Skill Everyone Should Learn

Farming or creating consumable vegetation is such an important but highly neglected skill. Mankind is highly dependent on a regular produce and supply of agricultural products. Humanity can do away with many other things but not food. In the time of COVID pandemic when only essential services were running, we realized the importance of regular supply of food and groceries. 

Even with so much dependence on this sector, it remains one of the most neglected in the society. Farming should be a skill which everyone should be well versed with. It should be part of the practical classes of basic education. Everyone should be encouraged to grow one or more crops on whatever cultivable area they can use.

In India, the income from agriculture is non-taxable. Inspite of that very few foray into this sector. People from traditional farming families in the villages hunt for miniscule jobs in the cities and move to the city suburbs. The lack of facilities and support to encourage farming along with lot of  dependence on weather conditions makes it a unreliable option. Not to mention the lack of formal training in the skill.

In today's era with opening of many skill centre's,  the focus is more on technology and computer science courses. People use these skill training to directly land a job as a professional. But with skill training in agriculture activities,  one can get self-employed  & become his own boss with minimum investment. Sadly, its not a marketed skill to learn and may be industry leaders don't want one to learn it.

At present,  big business houses are entering this sector - buying large farm lands managed by employees and creating large warehouses and cold chains to preserve the produce.

Why should one be dependent on someone for food when you can create your own with nature’s help and minimum investment. 

P.S. : Used to read in school that "India is an agricultural country. 70% of the income is from agriculture." Used to wonder if that was true. How the food prices are rocketing now and one has to spend so much on basic food items.