If you ate something today, thank a farmer. Because somewhere out there, Indian farmers and their families have tilled the soil despite many hardships, and produced food for us. And so, on Kisan Divas, or Farmers’ Day, we at Texmo Industries want to re-dedicate ourselves with renewed energy to producing the best pumps for our farmers.

Farmers’ Day
Farmers’ Day is celebrated in many countries around the world.

• USA does it on 12th October

• Zambia on the first Monday of August

• South Korea observes it on 11th November and

• Ghana on the first Friday of December

In India, Farmers’ Day is observed on 23rd December every year. It also commemorates the birth anniversary of Choudhary Charan Singh, the fifth Prime Minister of India who got the Bharat Ratna for his work in agriculture, and because he is known as a champion of farmers. Kisan Divas started in the year 2001.

Celebrating farmers
Food, one of the essential needs of life, nourishes all of us every day only because of India’s farming community. Therefore, it is important to respect the work done by farmers every day as well. The agriculture sector looks after our daily nourishment, of course. It also looks after ‘nourishment’ of the country. GDP from the agriculture sector touched INR Billion 7027.92 in the fourth quarter last year. This figure translates to around 16% of India’s GDP. Even during the Covid duration, Indian agriculture showed growth.

There is no doubt that farmers are one of the main pillars of support for any country.

Farmers deal with many other factors and challenges to do their work. Few of the main challenges are:

• Climate change & weather variations

• Water availability

• Soil erosion and managing soil fertility

• Financial challenges

• Market vagaries and so on

Ways to celebrate Farmers’ Day
Not all of us are connected directly with farmers. But just the fact that we are eating food every day means that we are connected to their community. And just as we celebrate Independence Day, Diwali, Pongal, and many other important occasions, we could make some time to thank our farmers too. Perhaps we could cook a meal using only local produce (thus contributing to reduction in food miles too).

It would be a good idea to buy produce from local farmers’ markets rather than large department stores. A visit to a farmer’s field is also a great idea. Doing some volunteer work with them will help us appreciate the effort that goes into producing crops.

Today is a good day to recognise the fabulous work being done by farmers. Their physical toil, regardless of the time of day, is the reason why our plates are filled with food.