What is the root cause of India's food problem?

For a man who will inherit vast tracts of fertile farmland in Punjab, India's grain bowl, Jaswinder Singh made what seemed to him a logical career move - he took a job with a telecoms company in New Delhi.

"I can't go back to the village after an MBA Delhi has more money, better quality of life. The job is more satisfying, and you don't depend on the weather or prices set by the government," said Singh, who earns rent from his farm, while a tenant tills the land.

Singh's choice reflects a growing and worrisome trend in the nation's agriculture sector: Indian farms are failing to attract capital or talent, either from rich landlords like Singh, or the 21,000 students who graduate from India's 50 agricultural and veterinary universities.

"At present, most of the farm graduates are either taking jobs in the government, or financial institutions, or in private sector industry. They are seldom taking to farming as a profession," a report by the MS Swaminathan Research Foundation said.

The views of the foundation - set up by MS Swaminathan, who led India's Green Revolution in the 1960s that helped make this vast nation self-sufficient in food - were echoed in a poll by the National Sample Survey Organisation, a government body. The survey showed 40% of Indian farmers would quit farming, if they had a choice - an alarming revelation for a country where two-thirds of the billion-plus people live in villages.

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