Productive leisure on the farm

Abstract

In the context of deepening national concern about the future of farming in India, professionals in Bengaluru's (Bangalore's) booming information technology and related industries are purchasing agricultural land at the edges of the city and farming in their free time. These “techie farmers” invest their money and time in cultivation either (1) to generate idealized agrarian traditions and aesthetics or (2) to prove that with the right approach, agriculture can be economically and ecologically viable. Techie farmers’ weekends spent on the farm are a form of what I call “productive leisure”: the act of engaging in leisure activities that are positioned as productive alternatives to other forms of work and play. Yet techie farmers’ experiments in cultivating self and society remain anchored in and further entrench the inequalities that make agriculture a precarious livelihood strategy for some and a productive leisure activity for others.