PDS and the decline of farming

Education and the consequent rise in aspirations has also resulted in many veering away from agriculture

"I miss them,” sighs Rita Devi, gazing into her now empty cowshed. We are in her house in Kandhbari, a sleepy hamlet in Kangra, Himachal Pradesh. “There was a time when many people kept cows in the village,” she says. Today, most of us find it easier and cheaper to buy milk at Rs 25 per litre from a local dairy. She runs the village Anganwadi but spends her mornings in her fields, where her family grows onions, garlic, corn and wheat. “It’s a hobby, not a necessity,” she says. “Farming gives me something constructive to do when I’m back