Taking leave of agriculture - for good

There is struggle, financial ruin and despair concealed beneath the outward calm of many of the world's farmers. Faced with low farmgate prices, high costs of chemicals and credit, and competition that seems unfair, farmers in unprecedented numbers are turning their backs on a way of life that may have sustained their families for generations. Farmers do not expect to farm by right, and take their chances as do those in any other walk of life, but when things go wrong, can they be blamed for taking leave of agriculture - for good?

"For many of India's 550 million farmers agriculture is becoming unremunerative" says Devinder Sharma, an agriculture journalist writing for Indian national papers. "Two years ago there were 500 suicides by cotton farmers in Karnataka, Uttar Pradesh and Punjab because they felt they were farming themselves into debt. If we carry on with the industrialization of agriculture for the benefit of industry, not the farming community, then more suicides will take place."

Canadian agriculture is already on an industrial scale. Average landholdings of arable farmers run into many thousands of hectares but now, with a slump in the value of canola and wheat, farm fortunes have crashed. Many farmers have been bankrupted out of business. Many, perhaps those farmers with lesser debt to their banks, feel forced to struggle on. Those losing least money in the current crisis - who may be the best at the job - are determined not to go the same way and are selling up. "It's really unfortunate because some of these are the best and brightest farmers when it comes to picking up technology wisely, not just blindly. These were the farmers who really thought about how they farmed," says Doug Derksen who, in his role as a farms advisor in the west of Canada, hears on a daily basis the serious doubts the region's very best producers have about their future. "It's a worrying situation. With the economic pressures more and more of the good farmers are leaving. We need those people desperately."

Some may seek to work where the agricultural climate seems better. According to Voluntary Service Overseas - the international charity that recruits agricultural and other specialists to work in development - enquiries from people wishing to leave the agriculture, horticulture and land management sectors in the UK have more than doubled in the last four years. Peter Brown left a UK job in poultry production management in January to work in Zambia. "The company I worked for had been taken over twice recently" he explains "Costs are being driven down. I went into this sector to work with animals and people but then I seemed to be in the business of just keeping the boss happy." He hopes for more job satisfaction in Africa. But many an African farmer will be happy to highlight the reality of farming and explain why so many smallholder farmers - well over a million a year, according to the Washington-based World Watch Institute - are pushed by poor returns to leave the land to seek an alternative livelihood in the cities.

Unless farmers can get a fair return, not to mention satisfaction and respect, the drift out of agriculture will continue. So what can halt the flow? According to Devinder Sharma in India a change of policy is necessary. "It is possible to reverse the trend, if there's the political will. Otherwise we will face a huge food supply problem and social crisis", he warns.

Farming is a challenging business at the best of times. Certainly there needs to be more recognition of the grim financial reality of working the land in many parts of the world. Sympathy for those who guide the plough, tend the livestock and gather the harvest would be appreciated but only favourable policies and better prices will help them to thrive. The need for all these is urgent because the world needs farmers as much as it needs food.

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