Many governments across the globe, particularly in Asia and Africa, have been linking poverty alleviation and skill development as some kind of cause-and-effect therapy. The assumption is that poverty can be effectively removed if the youth are provided with vocational education. For the removal of poverty, the focus has largely been on rural youth and families which are below the poverty line(BPL) and serious attempts have been made to train these youth and shift them to metro and town areas where job opportunities exist. What is the ground reality? What is happening to these migrated youth? Has it helped remove poverty? These are questions that need serious study. `
It is true that agriculture which used to employ families in large numbers has lost its attractiveness owing to poor yield, old technology and also the inability of the farmer to change or adopt newer ways of farming. Added to this in India many farmers have fallen into the debt trap and have ended tragically their life. The youth, therefore are forced to seek options to leave the village and try their luck in the cities. During the training, thanks to the short-sighted generosity of various state and federal government policies, free food and stay are organised. He is told about the bright prospects that await him in the metro areas. It is almost as if the dream has come true to leave the frustrations of being unemployed in the villages and seek a fortune in the cities. It is during the training that many wrong and exaggerated ideas are induced in the impressionable minds by the training providers. But when the youth, upon completion of the training, is sent to the metro cities and offered jobs the reality strikes. The starting salary in most organisations is the minimum wage as per the rules. That is barely enough to take care of his/her requirements. In many cases, no housing is provided thus forcing the youth to live in shanties which become unbearably hot during summer. Often these migrated youth are viewed with suspicion by the locals. In case of theft or any crime, these youths are the first to be questioned. In many cases, due to inadequate training, the youth are sacked from the companies. They are thus driven to petty crimes. Many studies in Africa have shown that these unemployed youth in the cities have often resorted to live by indulging in serious crimes. Overall such a situation has created severe imbalance both in cities and in villages. Indian workers eking out a living in the Middle East or a rural youth working in a swanky apparel unit in Gurgaon or a youth from Naivasha coming to Nairobi and roaming on the streets have the same frustration that their life has been completely screwed. What is the situation in the villages? In villages, no manpower is available as all able-bodied men have left the villages in search of better prospects. A shocking study in Africa reveals that while sixty per cent of the population is under 24 the average age of farmers is around 60!!! In the US this is 58 and in Japan, this is 67 and in India, it is 57!!! So, there is not only a major change in rural and urban demographics it is also begging an answer to the question of who will grow our food? How can we bring back the youth who any which way is not happy working in the metro back to his/her roots? The solutions to this vexed question are needed as of yesterday. In order to accomplish this, we need to make agriculture as a profession more attractive. Needless to add mechanization, factorization, newer genetically modified varieties and innovative behavioural change modifications are needed. Also, we need to carefully identify the entrepreneurially driven farmers as the nucleus and build the ecosystem around them as then they become the key change agents. A recent study highlights that one tractor can generate six jobs thus job creation also gets impetus. The financial institutions including the microfinance agencies need to adopt innovative approaches to identify the psychological creditworthiness of the youth. Simply getting the financial collateral data is a very myopic way of determining the willingness to repay the loans. In order to make farming a life-choice profession and reverse the artificial migration of youth we need to reinforce the economic and social advantages of staying in the villages. Many studies have pointed out that the youth would any day prefer to stay with his family even if he gets lower wages as it provides him with the much-needed psychological comfort and emotional assurance rather than getting trapped in a cold metropolis. While in the cities there is much talk of apprenticeships as a way to further get practical training the agricultural land-based apprenticeship has really not been thought about. Many studies also have pointed out that the lack of serious efforts on the part of agri-input providing companies to nudge effectively the farmers to adopt better farming practices has been detrimental. Instead, most of these companies flood the farmers with technical literature that is never gone through or followed. The lack of education and obsession with following exactly what their forefathers did have made the small-hold farmers work by default and not by choice. If serious efforts are made in capacity building, identifying entrepreneurial leaders among small hold farmers and introducing mechanization we would have not only solved the problem of youth migration, and crime in the cities but also would have contributed to food security.
