International Journal of Agricultural Science

and Research (IJASR)

ISSN(P): 2250-0057; ISSN(E): 2321-0087
Vol. 7, Issue 2, Apr 2017, 449-456
© TJPRC Pvt. Ltd.

EMPOWERING YOUNG FARMERS IN THE CONTEXT OF CLIMATE CHANGE

NASREEN BANU1 & A. MRUNALINI2

1
Principal Scientist, AICRP-CD (All India Coordinated Research Project – Human Development), PGRC, PJTSAU
(Professor Jayashankar Telangana State Agricultural University), Rajendranagar, Hyderabad, India
2
Principal Scientist, AICRP-FRM (All India Coordinated Research Project – Family
Resource Management), PGRC, PJTSAU,Rajendranagar, Hyderabad, India
ABSTRACT

Indian agriculture today faces many challenges and it is further aggravated by the extremeweather
variations.Majority of the farmers are small and marginal landowners who are resourcepoor. They aremost affected
due to their low adaptive capacity,lack of technical knowledge and risk-taking ability. In view of the present perspective,
the research paper traces the variousmeasures from the literature review which would increase the resilience and
adaptivecapacity of the small land holders. It further provides insight to the stakeholders connected with agrarian
communities in retaining thesmall and marginal farmers, especially young farmers in Agriculture

KEYWORDS: Low Adaptive Capacity, Lack of Technical Knowledge and Risk-Taking Ability

Original Article
Received: Feb 17, 2017; Accepted: Mar 20, 2017; Published: Mar 27, 2017; Paper Id.: IJASRAPR201756

INTRODUCTION

International year of family farming (IYFF) was declared by the united Nations (UN) in the year 2014 for
the contribution of small scale farmers feeding the world and caring for the earth. The IYFF is an opportunity to
tell the world to invest in smallholder agriculture, invest in women in agriculture and invest in the rural youth.
Only Seventy per cent of the world’s population were being fed by small scale family farmers and 60% of the
people are still poor and hungry in Asia.

The current generation of youth, defined by the United Nations as those aged 15 to 24, is the largest in
history. As of 2012, the youth make up 1.8 billion or 18% of total world population. Ninety percent (90%) of these
young people live in developing countries, comprising as much as 20% of their countries’ total population.

BACKGROUND

Agricultural sector is a central element in the economy of developing countries. It also continues to be an
important sector in which poveryty, marginalization and exclusion remain widespread. Small farmers symbolize an
important part of agricultural sector and rural communities in developing countries.

It is very much imperative to generate growth in marketing to assuage rural poverty as it is an established
fact that Small scale farmers are the backbone of agriculture. In rural areas, it is essential to increase production,
create employment, increase flow of funds and demand for services for economic development.

Rationale

Out of a total population of over 1.2 billion (2011) in india, it was estimated that the number of farmers

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450 Nasreen Banu & A. Mrunalini

ranged from 95.8 million (8%) to 263 million (22%) to 450 million (38%), where as according to others estimates, the total
number of farmers were about 600 million (50% of total population). Since 1991 overall number of farmers had dropped
by 15 million (Sainath, P. 2013), which means that India is losing more than 2,000 farmers every day intimidating the
future of Indian agriculture and food security.

Retaining youth in agriculture is critical for Indian Agriculture as most of the new innovations require a skilled
agricultural work force. Prioritizing investments in youth and agriculture therefore is very crucial for greater and active
involvement of youth in agriculture.

Need Forclimate Smart Agriculture

• World population to increase by at least third by 2050 – from 7.3 billion (2015) to 9.7 billion (2050)

• Agricultural production will have to increase by at least 60%

• Climate change a threat to food and nutrition security

• Adaptation, mitigation and reduction of GHG (Green house gas) emissions necessary

Therefore, adoption of climate smart agriculture paramount to increased food security

BASIC CONCEPTS

Youth empowerment is defined as a process in which young people take charge of their lives, by addressing their
existing situation and make an appropriate decision to use their resourses effectively and alter their status through their
values, attitudes and beliefs. Youth empowerment aims to improve quality of life.

Figure 1
Climate Change

It is defined as the change in the weather patterns which lasts for an absolute period (decades to millions of years )
of time or it may be an average to long term (more or fewer extreme weather events) variation in weather condition. This
difference is due to biotic processes, dissimilarity in solar radiation obsorbed by earth and volcanic eruptions. Certain
human activities have also been identified as significant causes of recent climate change, often referred to as global
warming.

Impact Factor (JCC): 4.8136 NAAS Rating: 4.13

Empowering Young Farmers in the Context of Climate Change 451

Climate Resilience

It is the capacity of socio-ecological system that primarily to adapts, reorganize and evolves in to advantageous
pattern, which improves the sustainability of the system, and also absorb stresses and maintain stability of the system in the
context of climate change.

In reality Climate resilience plays a dual role, ie., to absorb shockand also to self renew. This definition is
differenciated from the concept of climate adaptation mainly because climate adaptation is defined as a set of of processes
that helps a system to absorb changes that has already occurred or may occure in the future.

Sustainable Agriculture

It is defined as the production of food, fibre or other plant or animal products by using farming techniques, which
further protects the environment, human communities, public health and animal welfare.

Food Security

It is all time physical availability and economic acess to adequate, safe, and nutritious food to meet the all peoples
dietary needs and food preferences to lead an active and healthy life (USAID, 1992). In this context, Food security
encompasses three important componenets i.e., food availability, food access, food utilization. Here Food access is partly
determined by availability and Food utilization by accessabilty. The last component of Food security is Food stability that
cuts across the other three components.

Farmer Networks

Farmer network is a way to communicate with each other to exchange information, socialize, learn on a regular
and ongoing basis. The network helps the farmers to decide what they actually want to learn together. It also helps the
farmers to create groups, based on their interest, for eg., organic farming, grouping women farmers or specific produce.

CHALLENGES FACED BY YOUNG FARMERS

According to UN-ESCAP (2012), several challenges beset the youth today. The youth who are engaged in
farming face many challenges as young small-scale farmers in terms of

Lack of Access to and Control Over Productive Resources (Land, Capital, Seeds, etc) and Markets

• First of all, land and agrarian reform is not available especially for young famers in most of the Asian countries.
As a result majority of the young farmers remain landless, and involved only as seasonal agricultural labour.
Further they are unable to commercialize their traditional farming (Wobst, 2010) due to lack of access to land.

• Secondly, as most of the young farmers perform under their parents guidance, they hardly involved in making
decisions over farming practices. Besides this they need to wait to inherit the land from their parents to do farming
independently.

• Thirdly, the basic perceptive of banks and financial institutions to understand the needs of the young farmers is
very weak.

• Fourthly, as they lack access to credit, most of the young farmers have not established their markets.

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452 Nasreen Banu & A. Mrunalini

Lack of Insufficient Skill and Knowledge on Production, Processing, and Business

There is a lack of experience, training and technical knowledge and skills to make farming more productive in
farm management, agri-enterpise business development and marketing among young farmers. Most of the young farmers
are receptive to new technologies and technique to increase their productivity, however most of the institutions do not
understand the aspirations of young farmers. (Wobst, 2010).

Figure 2

Globalization and Variability in Prices

Young farmers are unable to compete with their products and are compelled to leave their farms due to low tariff
or open system for agriculture goods in some asian countries. Further, due to high costs of agricultural inputs (e.g.,
chemical fertilizers, insecticides, seeds) and low price of agricultural products, Farming is not generating any raise on
investment.

Farming is perceived as a risky business, as young farmers lack access to markets to sell their products at fair
prices, as it largely depends on middlemen. Changing climate conditions too is increasing irregularity for farmers.

Lack of Participation in Agricultural Governance

Farmers hardly make important decisions for related to agricultural matters, as they are not represented. Further,
the issues and concerns of young farmesrs are not usually taken into consideration or prioritized as they are excluded in
agricultural policy formation and decision-making processes.

NEED FOR ESTABLISHING FARMERS NETWORK

Farmers face new challenges due to lack of information on how to deal with the issues ofclimatic variability,
market uncertainty, new technology etc. For example, a farmer producingwheat on his field for generations, now faces new
changes of weather, temperature, soilmoisture, soil quality, and biological factors. This has resulted in emergence of new
types ofweeds, pests, and diseases (such as stem rusts) that can significantly affect the health, and thus yield and
profitability, of the wheat crop. Hence, Access to reliable, timely and relevant information can help significantly and in
many ways toreduce farmers’ risk and uncertainty, empowering them to make good decisions.

Impact Factor (JCC): 4.8136 NAAS Rating: 4.13

Empowering Young Farmers in the Context of Climate Change 453

Sustainable Development Goals

UN Member States in 2015 (adopted Sustainable Development goals) called for Multi-stakeholder partnerships as
It is a key tool to achieve progress across multiple sectors. This partenship includes farmers, companies, governments and
civil society that can produce impact greater with collective effort than the sum of its parts. Therefore a Farmer network is
imperative, as it

• Builds community by creating new friendships and business partnerships

• Provids education and guidance opportunity

• Targets specific audience with common interests and concers

• Provides opportunity to the farmers for interactive discussion on new ideas forproduction and marketing strategies

• Provides a common plateform to reach and increase the success of sustainable agriculture producers

Thus Farmers use the information provided by different intermediaries, e.g. krishivigyankendras, SMS messages,
extension staff, etc. to react timely to weather fluctuations or extreme weather events by selection of proper seed varieties,
time of sowing, farm operations, etc.

ROLE OF EXTENSION AND ADVISORY SERVICES IN BUILDING RESILIENCE OF

SMALLHOLDER FARMERS

Among the population, Small holder farmers and rural producers are the most susceptible to climatic shocks and
weather related disasters. This helplessness is compounded by many other factors such as poor governance, market
fluctuations and other problems. Inorder to address this problem, Extension and advisory services are very much required
to build the resilience of rural and farming community through skill and knowledge based capacity buiding programmes.
The basic postulation behind this premise is that farmers lack adequate knowledge, resources or both to effectively prevent,
anticipate, prepare for, cope with and recover from shocks.

In this context, extension and advisory services may be able addrees these issues, provide opportunity and access
to resources and promote resilient agricultural systems by communicating farm level challenges and potentional solutions
to policy makers in a timely manner to make better informed policy decisions.

Resilience is about Local Knowledge and Innovation

Smallholder farmers hold a wealth of knowledge abouttheir land produce food. It is however, important to
promote opportunitiesto share information and knowledge – at the household,local and regional levels – so that farmers can
learn fromeach other and work together.

Resilience is about Maintaining Diversity

Throughout history, diversity has been fundamental tofarmers’ ability to cope with uncertainty and risk. A
diversityof crops is more stable – if one fails, others may not. Adiversity of farming techniques allows farmers to cope
withdifferences in local environments and the seasonality that isa part of life.

Resilience is about Building Trust and Mutual Reliance

People are better able to adapt to challenges when they have strong social networks and make decisions in a

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454 Nasreen Banu & A. Mrunalini

waythat involves others. The livelihoods of smallholder farmersare strengthened when they have opportunities to learnfrom
and help one another, build on their strengths and acttogether. This kind of trust is enhanced when the distancebetween
farmers and markets is reduced, where learningengages local people with their neighbors, and wheremarkets are
encouraged at the local level. Farmers’ organizations,cooperatives and innovative approaches to sharingknowledge
strengthens rural communities.

Figure 3

Source: Climate Change. Agricultre and Food security (CCAFS), 2013

MEASURES THAT COULD STRENGTHEN THE CAPACITY OF FARMERS TO ADAPT TO

CLIMATE CHANGE

Figure 4

Increasing Soil Health

As increasing weather / climatic variability and erratic rainfall or prolonged periods of drought are likely to reduce
yields, any increase in productivity through better soil health and fertility will serve to moderate the impact of climate
change on agricultural productivity.

Water Conservation

Adapting to climate change requires even more emphasis than is currently given to improving water management
in both rainfed and irrigated systems. Rainwater harvesting and provision of more water storage facilities need to be taken
up to reduce the exposure to dry spells, improving rainwater infiltration into soils and greaterwater use efficiency.

Impact Factor (JCC): 4.8136 NAAS Rating: 4.13

Empowering Young Farmers in the Context of Climate Change 455

Livelihood Diversification

Capacity to cope in harsh climatic conditionsand uncertain markets calls for diversification of farming systems.
Bettersoils and water harvesting are the basis for enhanced diversification. Theimproved resource base (land and water)
would allow allowto build assets throughfruit growing, cover crops and crop diversification that support betterdiets and
nutrition, while enabling more farmers to engage in marketing ofcash crops, among other activities.

Farmers would be benefited and would incur crop loss and damage to minimal level, if climate based agricultural
advisories: crop management advice, weed management, pest management, havest and post-harvest management, crop
planning & management, livestock management, and updated weather forecasts & conditions (rains, floods and strong
winds) are communicated in time.

Its helps the farmers to make sure that they have better quality seeds which are more resilient to shocks associated
with climate change. Maximizing crop yields and enhancing soil health through efficient use of fertilizers, pesticides and
improving post-harvest processing and storage facilities.

CONCLUDING REMARKS

It can be concluded that when youth understand about the profitability of farimg and as well develop a sense of
pride in farming, they will be definitely attracted to agriculture. To develop self confidence in youth, basic resources such
as land, capital and equipments needs to be provided to make farming less tedious work. A comprehensive & integrate
policy and agrarian reform, sustainable, agro-ecological production, farmer-managed agro-based enterprises needs to be
worked out to strnthgen the potential and energy of the youth for agriculture. Besides this, building the climate resilience of
smallholder farmers requires more than just changes made to the techniques and technologies used in the field. Changes are
needed in the whole farm system and in the way that knowledge and information is delivered and shared.

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Impact Factor (JCC): 4.8136 NAAS Rating: 4.13