Back to the soil: Why Indian executives are switching city jobs for agriculture

In highoctane New York Anjali Rudraraju worked at a desk in wealth management from nine to five and loved it She would take the subway to work and then home spend her annual twoweek paid vacation in India and do it all over again But in 2010 the switch flipped and Rudrarajumdashthen aged 30mdashbooked a oneway ticket home to Hyderabad Life as a New Yorker in Finance felt meaninglessSomething had to change And the seed was sown in farmersrsquo markets in the Big Apple Rudraraju was enamoured by the fresh produce and products found thereShailesh Awate says most people are switching to farming not for the moneymdashtherersquos not much of that yetmdashbut for mental peaceUpon her return to the homeland she began travelling and studying organic farming through visits to farms and researched biodynamic farming Itrsquos how she met her partner Kabir Cariappa who had grown up on a farm The two set up Yarroway Farm in Coorg where they grow robusta coffee pepper coconut mangoes jackfruit millets turmeric neem among other produceRudraraju is not the first of her kind to make the migration from urban to rural and leave a cushy job for farming This is an increasingly common narrative among those who either have some background in farming or the financial resources to buy a piece of landManjunath GowdaThe All India Rural Financial Inclusion Survey for 202122 published in October found that 57 per cent of rural households in the countrymdashincluding households in semiurban centres with a population of less than 50000mdashwere agricultural This is significantly higher than the 48 per cent reported in the previous survey of 201617Previously it has widely been reported that the COVID19 pandemic caused millions to go back to agriculture This was after The India Employment Report 2024 found that the share of agricultural employment was at 1907 million in 2019 and spiked to 2215 million in 2020 showing an increase by 308 million due to the pandemic and has continued to see a steady increase The report also found that nearly 56 million people joined agriculture between 20202022Manjunath GowdaRudraraju feels the trend seems to be continuing primarily because of ldquothe overall quality of life food and exercisemdashthey want a quieter and healthier liferdquo She adds that access to good air and water and a more affordable life is attracting city folks in their 30s who are beginning to invest in land in rural pocketsIs there financial security to match the improved worklife balance in modern farming Itrsquos still a tough livelihood they all sayManjunath Gowda launched Farmersrsquo Fresh Food an online store for organic produce along with another venture Samriddhi Farms which delivers freerange country chicken and eggsFarming is perhaps the only business where inputs are purchased at retail prices and the finished product is sold at a wholesale price points out Gayatri Bhatia who runs Vrindavan Farm in Palghar ldquoFarmerconsumer direct marketing networks can correct this anomaly to a great extentrdquo says Bhatia who sells directly to consumersldquoThe other elephant in the room which nobody seems to realise or act on is the glaring disparity between prices of agricultural commodities or farm produce versus the cost of livingrdquo she says ldquoLast year farmers in my village sold their rice at R16 per kilo and a typical smallholder family earns about Rs 30000 from the sale of rice A single medical event in the family consumes this entire chunk of money leaving little to nothing for savingsrdquoGayatri Bhatiarsquos Vrindavan Farm sells a variety of produce such as rice dal mangoes and leafy greens directly to consumersFor Bhatia the seeds of agriculture were sown during family holidays visiting her familyrsquos farm lands After quitting a consulting job with the US Environmental Protection Agency she moved back to India in 2009 to run her family farm in PalgharWith a formal background in environmental analyses instead of agriculture Bhatia became a grower who was environmentally beneficial Yield from her farm includes rice dal oils mangoes leafy greens and seasonal produceAnjali Rudraraju and Kabir Cariappa set up Yarroway Farm in Coorg where they grow robusta coffee pepper coconut mangoes jackfruit among other cropsMost newage farmers would probably advise people to not make the switch if money is their motivator ldquoWhat has happened in urban areas is that especially with the IT sector people have earned and saved enough to experiment with farmingrdquo says Shailesh Awate whose life followed a similar trajectory from urban life to rural agriculture when he cofounded OOO Farms in Jashvantpur GujaratldquoSo ecovillages are coming up and scores of urban people are doing organic farming They believe that they are going to earn money out of farming But the fact is globally no growers are actually earning moneyrdquo explains the farmer who grows a variety of indigenous rice moong millets among other wild foodsFarming may not bring in the big bucks yet but the lure of a simpler life is pulling the youth who grew up on farms away from their city jobs and back to agricultureldquoMany young people left the village for jobs in the city But they have a hard time competing because their language and communication skills are not at parrdquo says Rudraraju ldquoThey may not earn enough money and live in cramped spaces which starts getting to them I see some of them returning and saying lsquoIrsquom making Rs 10000 less from farming but Irsquom also spending R10000 less At least I can live in my villagersquo But these are few and far in betweenrdquoThis story stands true for Manjunath Gowda who comes from a family of farmers and now splits his time between the family farm in Kolar Karnataka and his job as a software engineer in Bengaluru His father once had four to five acres of land but worked hard and expanded the farm to 100 acres ldquoI have been juggling agriculture and my job for the past eight to nine years My plan is to retire from software as soon as possible and dive fully into agriculturerdquo says Gowda adding ldquoThe kind of life I want to lead is very different Sure when the salary from software engineering comes in at the end of the month it feels great But itrsquos a stressful life compared to farming I feel good when I am doing things at our farmrdquoThe 32yearold works on a hybrid model at his day job in Kolar which gives him the freedom he needs to work on the farm He has launched Farmersrsquo Fresh Food an online store for organic produce along with another venture Samriddhi Farms which delivers freerange country chicken and eggsldquoIn todayrsquos time every farmer needs to be a small entrepreneur who can sell his own product What he grows at his farm he needs to deliver directly to the customer Then he can be a successful farmerrdquo says Gowda The farmerIT professional adds that with high labour costs itrsquos tough to make a profit if farmers lose their margin to wholesalers ldquoBut if you sell directly to customers and they like your product and recommend you to others your business keeps growingrdquo he addsAccording to the rural inclusions survey commissioned by the National Bank for Agriculture amp Rural Development the allIndia average monthly income of agricultural households in 202122 was Rs 13661 This was higher than the R11438 in nonagricultural rural households Meanwhile the Periodic Labour Force Survey shows that the average income of a salaried person in urban India was at R20030 in the second quarter of fiscal 2022 and increased to Rs 21647 in the first quarter of fiscal 2023But is this the ground reality ldquoWe have not found this to be the case at all anywhererdquo says Awate ldquoIf it an increased income is the case why are there still suicides Theyrsquore just growing day by dayrdquoSo what does the next generation of Indian agriculture look like ldquoPeople who have ancestral land or can afford to lease out larger areas for farming will continue to do so But those with very small areas like half acre or one acre itrsquos very doubtful that they will make money farmingrdquo says GowdaBhatia predicts that all sorts of approaches in farming will manifest including fast farming with more chemical use sold under the guise of productivity hightech farming such as hydroponics and the use of artificial intelligence ldquoOn the other hand there will also be a growing community of slow farmers Farmers that resonate with nurturing a holistic ecosystem who learn to live harmoniously within the rhythms of nature and communityrdquo she addsAwate adds that India has the potential to become a nutrition hub ldquoChemical corporations have destroyed all the soil across the globe Luckily poor countries like ours have been savedmdashour soil is not as depleted The reason is our farmers do not have money to buy that urea We have a great genetic pool of native seeds even though it has shrunk down to seven to eight per cent Who is going to grow in the end A country with great labour force soil and genetic poolrdquo