In today’s digital era, gardening and farm visits can help children connect with their roots and cut down on screen time, experts from Punjab Agricultural University (PAU) say, cautioning people against the increasing dependence of children on gadgets and social media platforms. They flag an increasing trend of watching reels and online gaming.
According to the experts, children, including those from rural pockets, are spending most of their time on gadgets and are lost in the virtual world, rather than taking up hobbies like gardening, painting and dancing.
With summer vacation underway, experts recommend it is the best time to introduce children to the soil and help them grow closer to nature.
“This is the best time to introduce the younger generation to comprehensive gardening and farm visits. It is an excellent and practical way to bring them back to the lap of nature,” says Bhallan Singh Sekhon from the PAU’s Krishi Vigyan Kendra (KVK).
Divya Jain from the KVK points out that gardening is not limited to maintaining a small garden at home.
“We often limit the meaning of gardening to a small kitchen garden at home. However, if we want to connect children deeply with the nature, we must expand this horizon. Children should be involved in broader concepts, such as growing decorative plants alongside vegetables, flower cultivation, setting up a home nursery, landscaping and caring for fruit-bearing trees,” she adds.
They vouch for adoption of the PAU’s kitchen garden model, recommending it for home courtyards, terraces and balconies.
While a kitchen garden ensures year-round supply of pure, toxin-free food for family, connecting with soil and seeds brings positive change in children, the experts add.
“Watching the process of a tiny seed transforming into a plant, blooming into flowers and bearing fruit teaches children the value of patience. Watering plants daily and weeding the soil instils a deep sense of responsibility in them,” said Gurmail Singh Sandhu, another expert from the KVK.
The experts say it has been scientifically proven that working in the soil boosts immunity as beneficial bacteria prepare a child’s body to fight seasonal illnesses.
While younger children enjoy playing in the mud, pulling teenagers, aged 13 to 19, out of the digital web and turning them towards gardening and farming is a genuine challenge.
PAU experts say it can be achieved through smart use of digital technology, farm visits and agricultural tourism, creative projects and making them partners in the efforts for environmental conservation.
The experts say instead of snatching away children’s mobile phones, we should encourage teenagers to take up nature photography and motivate them to use the internet to research advanced scientific agricultural models, like drip irrigation and hydroponics (soil-less farming).
The youngsters should be taken on visits to vast fields, where watching modern machinery in action, enjoying fresh, clean water from a tubewell and picking fresh fruits straight from the trees will distance them from screens while rejuvenating them physically and mentally.
The experts recommend handing over leadership of creative projects, such as landscaping of terrace, making pots out of scrap or preparing organic compost from kitchen waste, to teenagers.
