A very critical note on how narratives can be built to hide rural distress through definitional techniques is given in this article. While it is important to reduce the number of people who are dependent on agriculture evidence suggests that alternative sources of income are getting reduced for the rural population especially after the COVID-19 crisis. There is a dire need to address this issue through policy initiatives and the promises of rising rural income needs to be kept beyond election planks. Conceptualising sustainable food systems throughout India is needed and this was a crucial area of discussion during our Food Systems and Rural Development course led by Imran Amin at Indian School of Public Policy (ISPP). It is important to move beyond the MSP debate (though it is a very serious issue) to enabling people to find their livelihood emphasising adequate methods to address climate change which will ensure proper income to farmers and food security in India. #labour, #income, #ruraldistress, #migration, #sustainablefoodsystems, #climatechange,#foodsecurity.
The elections will soon get over. The promises will remain. The rural distress will continue unabated. In fact, it is likely to get compounded in the context of the evolving changes in the availability of water for agriculture. People eventually have to migrate. Rural areas will become urban areas by definition as the proportion of men in engaged in agriculture will drastically come down. And we all will celebrate that India has become majorly urban! The experts will then say, rural to urban migration has come down ! https://lnkd.in/gZPcDh7z
