This article from the New York Times last week perfectly sums up the reason why I say "huh?" when people say that India is developing so quickly. It's not hard to believe that the development is only really seen in certain places (like, say Bangalore where all the IT parks are being built, and south Delhi), but this article provides an alternative reason for why: you can't "develop" a country if you don't have infrastructure.
This also brought me to wonder, what should I consider "development?" Why am I fighting for development if, when I visit these villages, I marvel at the simplicity of how they live and sort of wish I could stay with them in their quiet paradise for a week? Part of it is that I can't really presume to know the issues they face. So maybe I would consider "development" to be increasing reliability - reliability in employment, but also reliability on the things (like electricity and water) that one needs to be a productive individual.
But agriculture is not a reliable employment. Rain doesn't come, too much rain comes, seeds are inferior, cows die so fertilizer is unavailable. So why, then, am I doing work that concentrates only on making a farmer more productive in agriculture? One of my co-workers brought this up last week - when asking farmers in the field what they would do with with a 40,000 rupee loan (about $1000), they say "open a shop." They don't say "buy more land so I can farm more crops." So, instead of making more productive farmers, how about making more productive people who are able to move out of farming? After all, agriculture is a very small portion of most "developed" economies. Thoughts?
This also brought me to wonder, what should I consider "development?" Why am I fighting for development if, when I visit these villages, I marvel at the simplicity of how they live and sort of wish I could stay with them in their quiet paradise for a week? Part of it is that I can't really presume to know the issues they face. So maybe I would consider "development" to be increasing reliability - reliability in employment, but also reliability on the things (like electricity and water) that one needs to be a productive individual.
But agriculture is not a reliable employment. Rain doesn't come, too much rain comes, seeds are inferior, cows die so fertilizer is unavailable. So why, then, am I doing work that concentrates only on making a farmer more productive in agriculture? One of my co-workers brought this up last week - when asking farmers in the field what they would do with with a 40,000 rupee loan (about $1000), they say "open a shop." They don't say "buy more land so I can farm more crops." So, instead of making more productive farmers, how about making more productive people who are able to move out of farming? After all, agriculture is a very small portion of most "developed" economies. Thoughts?
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