Today, Indian farmers are invariably over the age of 40. This, at first glance, a simple sight turns out to be a big problem for the agricultural sector in India and for all people who survive due to the food they produce - Indian farmers are aging.

In 2016, this means that we are approaching a situation where one of the largest food consumers has few farmers left.

Today, middle-aged people and young people shun agriculture. Perhaps the country will not have the next generation of farmers.

In 2011, 70% of Indian youth lived in rural areas, where agriculture was still the main source of livelihood. According to the 2011 census, every day 2 thousand farmers abandon agriculture. The farmer’s income is about 1/5 of the non-farmer’s income.

The youth of farming communities is not interested in agriculture - so much so that most students graduating from agricultural universities switch to other professions.

As it turns out, those who work on family farms or are involved in farming in some other way also do so with duress. Only 1.2% of the 30,000 rural youth polled by the nonprofit Pratham in 2017 sought to be farmers.

Agriculture around the world is aging without an adequate replacement for the next generation. The average farmer in the United States is 58 years old and the Japanese farmer is 67 years old. Every third European farmer is over 65 years old.

As in India, farmers are abandoning agriculture around the world. In Japan, for example, in the next 6–8 years, 40% of farmers will stop farming. The Japanese government has already embarked on a massive plan to encourage people under the age of 45 to become farmers.