Empowering farmers?

Question

It is usually said that we need to empower farmers i.e we need to educate them.Dont you think that if we educate they will move to urban areas and wont like to do farming?After gainnig education no one would be interested in doing manual work isnt it?

please give ur views on it..

thanks for your time

Answer 1

I agree with the two previous posters.

Let me add that "empowering" farmers can mean a couple of different things.  First off, educating farmers depends on getting the latest research based information into their hands.  And the most unbiased information comes from universities.  Hence the creation of the Extension Service and Land Grant Universities.  The problem is Extension budgets are under attack across the US as being too expensive and not relevant to modern society.  (Look at Minnesota Extension as an example.)  At the same time, there are a number of countries investing to develop a system exactly like we have to better educate their agriculture industry.  

Sometimes I have heard "Empowering" used in a different way.  It has less to do with education and is more about economics.  Some have used the word to mean getting rid of what they see as barriers to agriculture like subsidies, government programs, and price supports and let the farmers farm in a free market.

Answer 2

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH~ deep breath~HAHAHAHAHA.....~whew~  

Thanks for the laugh....I needed that!  I'm a small farmer.  Have been for over 20 years.

I read a book a day, sometimes more.  I've never stopped educating myself.  I'll never stop learning.  

I worked in the medical field for over 15 years (private duty nursing mostly).  Great hours, paid vacation, health bennifits, ect so-on-and-so-forth.

What did I do with my education?  Quit, so I could do manual labor, bucking 120 pound bales of hay, raising meat goats, in 110 degree summer weather, and negative 50 degree winter blizzards.

I've never been happier in my life.  I'll never go back to working for someone else.  I'll continue to work for myself, and work VERY hard for the rest of my life....because it makes me supremely happy.

Yesterday I was putting a cast on a baby goat that broke it's leg.

Three days before that, we were having a howling blizzard, with 45mph sustained winds.  I could hardly find my way back to the house after feeding, due to the blowing snow.

This summer, we had a microburst tornado go DIRECTLY over our farm, and our house...got to clean up from that.

Wouldn't trade this life for anything.  Indeed, we are going to expand our farm, and take our goat herd up to a 500 head producing herd, instead of the current 100 head of producing does we have.

The only problem with educating farmers is being able to do so, on farmer time.  That means between kidding season (twice a year), and harvest times for crops....and of course planting, and maintaining all the equipment.

I don't know of a single stupid farmer, or uneducated one.  I live in Idaho, in the very heart of potato country.

Are you sure you're not getting Farmers, and WalMart employees confused?

"Welcome to WalMart," does not take much of a brain.

Being able to figure out how much water in cubic inches a certain crop needs, when the best time to plant, how to run your crew for harvest, the mechanics of fixing/maintaining equipment....well I could go on.  Let's just say there's a whole lot more to being a farmer than you think there is.

~Garnet

Homesteading/Farming over 20 years

Answer 3

In the United States, farmers have been educated in scientific methods of agriculture since before the Morrill Act of 1862. And, yes, since then many many farmers have quit farming, and many of them have moved to urban areas.

In 2008, fewer than 2% of Americans farm for a living. Yet, they do a more than adequate job of raising food for our country, and much of the agricultural products they produce are exported.

Since before 1862, farming has trended away from "manual labor" and towards more technologically advanced production (although many aspects of farming still require long days and hard manual labor).

The most rapid gains in technology have surfaced since World War II (think mechanization, pesticides, genetics and improved fertilizers). And, in the last fifteen years or so, farmers have experienced the same tecnological advances that the world has (think GPS technology and genetic engineering, among many others).

Farmers continue to receive education from land grant universities and the cooperative extension service, as well as other sources. Again, the technological advances require contant education.

Yet, approximately 5 million Americans (US population at 300 million times approximately 1.7% farmers) continue to choose to farm.

So, to answer your question, farmers have been empowered through education for more than 150 years. Many have left the farm, but there are still plenty farmers left, and they produce more food than has ever been produced before.

I have no data to back this up, but I would suspect that more farmers have left farms due to shrinking economic margins than due to education they have received.

Answer 4

Jigyasu, I don't know where you are from, but in the US most of the farmers are very well educated. Most, especially the younger generation, have University degrees. Education and the dislike of manual labor are  not what is driving the farmers from their farms.

Answer 5

lets see you think your moving to the cuntry to get away from it all but now your working 18 hours a day unless you want to be buff our you have a problem with obeseity throwing manure and hay bales is a good work out but those funny growths on your body from the chemicals you use you can ignore them cause i think funky skin tag things and what ever is great when the bag is labeled skull and cross bones your pretty shure its good for any digestive system whats a farm with out a windmill when your cellar is empty cause your just sick of farming you sold your animals and you ripped the berries out cause everyone fights over them why are you there so your family members who think they would want to farm cant cause you have it you have all the black smithing tools but make big excuses as to why you dont want to make homemade things and you would rather have people rip your barns down not maintain them even thought your a great carpenter your farm looks like h**l and it could be heart stopping but your more concerned with drinking and havn a nice truck thats way over sized that gits no work and you still have not figured out that there is no crop you can grow that makes as much as a wind farm you can farm arround it you got rid of your chickens your out side composting toilet as well as your well i guess its better to complain about taking prescripts and not having food you have to weigh out drugs or food but you can cut down on your grocery bills if your willing to kill plants untill you finally git the hang of it some forest soils at one time were fertile but now that the soil has been milked for all it is worth and people who rent it are not intrested in making it produce long term only short term and you kill the aquafier with poision and or drain it you will find that the amish have more plants and animals then the states land so how will you farm organic for sustainableity or chemicaly with fertilizer that is made from oil form people who shoot at us when we give them money for there oil and the investors laugh at us and we pay big money for oil and stay dependant on old policys that continue to revolve arround oil even new ventures all oil this is what little i know hope this helps

Answer 6

What the heck, farmers are very well educated.  I am sorry, but we have better common sence and stuff like that.  Farmers basically can fix many thinks, vetrenations, and pretty much a business men too.  I hope you changed your views on this!

Answer 7

No, I do not think that educating farmers will make them stop farming and move into the city.  All it means is that they are more informed about the outside world.  This allows us to see a global economy and what the demands will be for the future.  We also learn technology that further helps in production from soybeans to cattle.  If you really talk to a successful farmer, you will notice that they are in fact pretty intelligent people.  We may not know how to do brain surgery, but ask a farmer how they work their land in order to survive, and I think you will be pretty surprised about how detailed their information is and the reasoning behind it.

Answer 8

I have to say that I am a little offended by this question.  

The idea of the dumb country hick that just sits on his porch and spits tobacco juice should be dead by now.  Farmers are using some of the most advanced technology known to mankind in order to produce the food that you need to survive.  Have you ever used a GPS unit?  Farmers across the nation have adopted this technology for various reasons including reducing the amount of pesticides applied.  Have you ever been told about how biotechnology is increasing yields and also lowering the amount of pesticides released into the environment.  Maybe you don't know what biotechnology is.  Companies such as Monsanto are putting genes (DNA) into plants that makes them resistant to insect pests and herbicides such as glyphosate.  They are also working on other genes that can help plants use nitrogen fertilizer and water more efficiently.

Don't think that farmers are just stupid hicks that can't do anything else so they have to farm.  I am a Certified Professional Agronomist with a Master's degree and I would love to farm.