Preliminary exam CSAT March 17

1. Farming is no longer attractive among village youths. The mindset of farmers is not easily changed to win confidence for natural farming. The labour-intensive and time-consuming nature of Zero Budget Natural Farming (ZBNF) prove to be an obstacle for making the transition to natural farming. Small farmers can afford increased labour using their family labour, but it is difficult for big farmers to get adequate labour for big farms. Some big farmers, however, innovatively use locally developed solutions to make ZBNF less labour-intensive but the implementation of such technology needs initial investment, which poses an obstacle.

Based on the passage given above, the following assumptions have been made:

  1. Natural farming makes sense environmentally, but may not be that viable economically.
  2. Affordable machinery and adequate finance could encourage village youth to take up natural farming.

Which of the above assumptions is/are valid?