The golden colours of the morning illuminate this photograph of the fields near Far Cry a few days ago, making it reminiscent of a painting by John Constable. The harvest this season promises to be a good one, with the weather gods looking benignly upon farmers’ endeavours. The sleeping “Bhoothaya” (the affectionate endemic term for a mechanized harvester) is symbolic of progress that local agriculture has made from traditional manual harvesting of rice. Romance aside, it nevertheless underlines a serious problem facing the industry. Mechanisation has arrived, but has not gone far enough to offset the acute shortage (and cost) of labour faced by farmers. Still very much a smallholder driven crop that has been an inherited generational practice, today’s youngsters have aspirations that go far beyond the prospect of the physical labour required to bring a crop to fruition.