IT Vs. Agriculture: Who is the real winner and who is the real loser?

The development in IT (Information Technology) in the 20th century is remarkable. No doubt, the advancements and inventions in the field have been great and we have crossed several milestones in IT development in India. Education has reached far interior in the villages of our nation and people in India have started to come out to the cities for higher education and have even started going abroad for advanced studies and research. This development in the field is definitely something we need to be proud of and India stands first in getting out-sourced jobs from other nations.

On the one hand, we have seen the remarkable development in the field of IT. But on the other, we have not noticed what’s happening to the food bowl of India. Agriculture is happening only in villages and it’s from there the whole nation is getting the necessary food. Owing to the recent changes in the climatic conditions, global warming, and monsoon failures, more of the village dwellers have started to relocate to cities in search of some other profession. Most of the cultivatable lands are becoming residential areas and apartments are being built in those lands of agriculture.

We have already started to import food stuff for our basic needs and if this situation lasts for another decade or two, then we may have to fully depend upon imports for our everyday food. When this is the case in India, we need to see what’s happening in other countries and is it the same situation elsewhere. The answer is no. In other countries, the technological improvements have been effectively used in agriculture and they have increased the productivity and quality of food. They have invented several modern techniques to handle drought situations in agriculture and how to effectively use water.

What happens in India is something sick. People move from villages to cities and settle down in the cities because they have facilities there. The population in the villages is coming down and the cities are overflowing with no space for people to even move around. This situation can be compared to the blood circulation in our body. The impure blood comes to the heart, gets purified, and then gets back to other places of the body to serve its purpose. In a similar fashion, the educated people in the cities should go to villages and start implementing their knowledge in agriculture and improve the agricultural standards in India.

If that does not happen, the situation is similar to how the human body will become if the pure blood is not circulated to other parts of the body and stays in the heart itself. The heart will burst not being to hold all the blood and the rest of the body will die without blood to keep them alive. It is high time we educated people should start realizing what is necessary to improve Indian economy and start contributing toward agriculture. Agriculture is not to be considered as something below our grade of work. Instead it is the backbone of our country and let’s realize that and start contributing toward it.

If we win in IT alone, then we might seem to be winners, but we would still be down at economy and will always be a developing country. Let’s start implementing IT in agriculture, improve the technologies used in agriculture, increase food production simultaneously, and become the real winner.