Becoming a Young Farmer

Becoming a Young Farmer with the subtitle Young People’s Pathways into Farming: Canada, China, India and Indonesia is a collection of research papers published by Palgrave Macmillan in 2024 and has been edited by Sharada Srinivasan. It highlights the urgent need to address the crisis of ‘generational renewal’ in agriculture and food systems. Farming populations are ageing across the world and do not seem to have successors who are eager to continue farming. The book brings this issue to the fore and studies key aspects like motivations, barriers faced and how gender impacts the process. The book looks for “commonalities, comparisons and contrasts” in the experiences of young farmers between countries and between regions within a country. Two sites have been selected in each country: Ontario and Manitoba in Canada; Sichuan and Hebei Provinces in China; Tamil Nadu and Madhya Pradesh in India; and West Manggarai, Central Java and Yogyakarta in Indonesia. The guiding research framework combines concepts from agrarian studies, youth studies, generation studies and gender and development, thus marking a departure from conventional agrarian studies. This 456-page document has been divided into 15 chapters: Introduction: Young People’s Pathways into Farming by Sharada Srinivasan and Ben White (Chapter 1); “Passion Alone Is Not Sufficient”: What Do We Know About Young Farmers in Canada? by Joshua Nasielski, Sharada Srinivasan, Travis Jansen, and A...