Visakhapatnam: Farming brings this youth closer to his roots

Visakhapatnam: Farming has always fascinated Prashanth Lagudu ever since his childhood. Having come from a family of farmers only fuelled his passion.

After completing his post-graduation in Cyber Security and Data Analytics in Andhra University this year, he realised that he could not settle for a nine-hour-long desk job and eventually get entrapped in the rat race.

That's when the 23-year-old decided to wrap a towel around his head, gird up his loins and dig his bare feet into the soil. It made him feel close to his roots. Thankfully, he had the liberty to carry out organic experiments he had in his mind, using a part of his father Ravi Babu Lagudu's farmland in his hometown Krishnadevipeta near Narsipatnam.

From growing organic mango to mixed vegetables on a small scale and paddy sowing, Prashanth says that his aim is to explore possibilities of developing a viable structure for the farmers in his village and design a social enterprise model for them to help them improve their income. "It is not an easy task to make farmers bid adieu to their traditional practices and replace them with fresh ones as old habits die hard. Unless I practice what I preach, it is hard to bring them together for a capacity-building endeavour," he reasons.

Inspired by the documentary film 'Nero's Guests' that focussed on challenges faced by the farmers and the pain some of them went through before committing suicide due to a faulty government, Prashanth decided to do his bit for the farmers. "Poor understanding of crops, socio-economic background and the inability to take risk often push farmers to stare at a bleak future. While there is little that one could do to save crops from floods, unseasonal rains or drought, youngsters play a larger role in educating farmers on farm technology and help them tide over the agrarian crisis," elaborates Prashanth.

Currently, pursuing Goonj fellowship on rural and urban engagement, Prashanth says that education and agriculture complement each other and retaining youth in farming assists in strengthening sustainable livelihoods.