Now, agriculture is asking the youth - who will take care of me now? Agriculture, which is the basic basis of existence, food and its provision, is made possible by the earth and nature. Now, only the youth with courage and conscience will be able to answer this eternal question of agriculture.

This question is as simple and relevant as it is complicated. Currently, there are only those who do not dare to do anything else in the fields, fields, fields and fields and are forced to make a living by digging the soil. They are not farming for food, but are weaving a web of exploitation of the soil and nature with a burning desire to make money. Some are found wandering around the edges of the fields with a slight desire to enjoy nature. Even in the midst of all this, young people are rarely found. 

The youth have no desire to return to the village to continue the farming tradition that their parents and grandparents have maintained. Some who want to enjoy farming are also hesitant about living from this in today's world and whether it will shine in the future. Many people know the causes and effects of such a dilemma. Now only the older generation is left in the villages.

Who will manage this farm after their father? Neither they know, nor those who shout slogans of the right to food. Leaders who never tire of giving speeches about prosperity, intellectuals who make a living by debating it, and those who make a living by debating it, do not know this either. We hear people say, ‘The land has been destroyed.’ But why and how did this happen? What can be done to deal with it? How can I choose farming? No one dares to say that. And why should I return to farming, having been driven away from farming for generations? No one gives a satisfactory answer.

Why don’t I want to farm? Is it because I don’t know the common truth that I have to farm for food? No, I know it very well. If someone or something doesn’t farm, my kitchen doesn’t cook rice, my mouth doesn’t feel full. But why doesn’t this matter touch me? Until there is an answer to this poignant question and a vision to address it, I will not return to farming, burdened with the mindset of leading a life of loss and a sense of inferiority. 

These and other questions are besetting today's youth. They have destroyed all the standards set by the older generation with the strength of a single movement. Not only will they bear the brunt of this age-old rebellion, but now they will also have to shoulder the responsibility of building the future. But why are they not speaking out on basic issues like food? This is an even more complicated question. This issue has become a hotbed for all those who hesitate to go to the fields.

As the saying goes, 'Speak or burn', social morality blindfolds everyone who does not do it themselves, but advises others. The point is simple - why should one make one's face red by saying something one does not do? Rather, there is hope of winning by not saying it. This is the social mood of all those who question today's social order. There is no question of youth not being present in this crowd.

It is the previous generation that has led today's youth to this mood. Even the previous generations did not reach this state overnight, if they did not reach this state overnight. To understand this difference, we need to look back at some of the past milestones of human civilization. It not only shows the path we have lost, but also gives us the insight to change it.

In short, the human race, which enjoyed the natural age, built a human civilization that managed its own food with increased confidence in the determination of cooperation. In the process, humans not only developed technology by learning from nature to make themselves comfortable, but also people who were able to eat nutritious food to their full stomachs were able to make new discoveries and inventions. This is what has advanced technology, science and industrial automation. Today's GMOs and intelligent machines are the latest examples of this.

Humans have an amazing mental ability to learn from history and take charge of the future. This is why this species has become its own global community. This supernatural consciousness of racial unity is also a distinctive feature of the human species. This is the basis for the progress or decline of humans today. However, in the last few thousand years, there has been a widespread change in the technology of transferring knowledge, especially in the education system. Mainly, this system has failed to transfer the eternal laws of nature, knowledge and experience. 

Today's youth have made this education-initiation and technology the natural standard of their progress. This has become a trend that matches the human nature of liking to work easily. Such technology has advanced in the plains environment for the past 400 years and has become global. It has left behind the hilly geography like Nepal and its natural technology and conscience. Why do today's youth not want to do farming in such geography? The essence of this serious issue is hidden here. 

It is not possible to return to farming by using the slogan of this country's nationality, self-reliance, self-respect or sovereignty or by showing and threatening food and farming crises. If this were to happen, why did the previous generation leave farming? Even this columnist should be able to answer. Together, the era of giving orders to such slavery has ended. Although this arrogance still remains in the current archaic political generation. This is where the truth of our farming's downward journey lies. 

With the development of the plains to the European level, Nepali society abandoned the path of progress at its own pace and took the path of backwardness. If modern education became a weapon to expand its greatest impact, educationists became its followers. With its expansion, those who can afford it send their children to expensive schools abroad or in the city. Those who cannot afford it set their eyes on boarding schools in the village.

Nature, food, farming and their deep relationship are never even discussed in education. Students do not know what the soil they are walking on means for us. However, they memorize things like widening city roads and establishing settlements on Mars. Parents do not think that children who have developed such external intelligence can farm and eat. 

Even neighbors and friends pressure them not to return to the village after studying, let alone the farm. Another thing, with today's technology, if there is no money, behavior from children to the elderly has become impossible. This is increasing the pressure to make money at any cost. Even the generation that was pushed to the village yesterday no longer dares to return. A young person, suffocated by all this pressure, goes abroad after spending lakhs to get a passport. There, he does everything without saying ‘what work’. Why? The thing is simple – they get money like other professionals. 

We are now forced to make a living by selling the technology and knowledge given by this education, whether we know it or not. This compulsion is not the youth’s own choice. It is the previous generation that brought us to this point. With this gradual social development, we have now reached the era of mechanical intelligence. Until we got here, we have been living off the crops grown by farmers out of compulsion. But, what is it like? And, with the fact that current farming is damaging the soil and human health, the concern of ‘who will do farming?’ has increased, which many have not even considered until now. 

And how will the youth survive in farming? The present era is the era of choice. This is a matter that none of us should forget. This is politically called democracy. A new era of farming will begin only when the political leadership, having understood this difference, is freed from the illusion that it ‘respects the choice of the youth’. It is useless to talk about any ‘ifs’ and ‘buts’ to make farming a competitive social service. What we should do with courage is to provide cultivable land to anyone who wants to do farming and create an environment for the investment (labor) required in this social enterprise. 

Again, the labor done by farmers is only facilitation. Production is the law of nature. There are millions of workers in the soil who do this labor. The entire universe is there to help in this. However, no one dares to do such farming without changing their thinking about our food and the farmers who facilitate this production. 

First of all, no one will farm unless there is a system to pay wages to farmers without any discrimination, and to provide them with social security, like other professions. The produce from farming is a social service. If there is no system to keep the price of this service competitive, the farmer becomes as helpless as an unemployed engineer. If no one takes the social services of farmers, it will be found in nature. If such services cannot be sold and are added to the soil, arrangements should be made to compensate farmers for fertilizing the soil. If this is done, who will not compete to become a farmer?