Youth - future of Indian agriculture: Are they really willing? - Evidence from Tamil Nadu

The study attempted to analyze the factors determining willingness of students towards making agriculture as a career. Further, an effort was made to study the constraints in establishing their own farm immediately after graduation. About 397 agricultural students doing UG, PG, and Ph.D. degrees in Tamil Nadu were randomly surveyed during September, 2020. The results revealed that, about 25% of the students joined the course because of better job opportunities, and 19% to learn about farming. Nearly 48% of the students wish to be in a public sector job and only 11% chose to make agriculture as their career. Having own farm land, place of residence, parent’s primary occupation, age, gender, types of crop grown, and mother’s occupation had significant positive effect on students’ willingness to become farmers, whereas, degree enrolled, and total farm land had negatively affected the students’ willingness. Lack of remunerative price, unavailable credit at a low interest, poor social recognition was the major constraints for not involving in agriculture at an early age. Consequently, more than half of the respondents planned to do farming after 10 years of their graduation. Public policies could make efforts to reduce this period if agricultural graduates are to be among young people who engage in farming.