In this conversation, Bharat Bhushan Tyagiji, national award winning farmer from western Uttar Pradesh, and social anthropologist Richa Kumar, together attempt to analyse the alternative perspective of Tyagiji on the current crisis of farming in India, especially Punjab. Unlike typical alternative perspectives that uncritically glorify ‘tradition’, romanticise nature, and dismiss science and machines, Tyagiji’s views are refreshingly different. His focus is on the present; he is not enamoured by tradition or by so-called traditional knowledge. At the same time, he seeks to put science back in its place—within a larger discourse and appreciation of the knowledge of living in this world with meaning and purpose. He argues for working with scientific knowledge rather than dismissing it entirely, and he wants to use technology as part of a system that also centrally values human labour. But before we can change agriculture, he argues, we have to first contend with questions of how we want to live, and what we want to value. This conversation is a small contribution towards helping us think through some of these vexing questions in the context of the future of farming.

在这次对话中，北方北方邦的全国获奖农民巴拉特·布山·泰吉吉（Bharat Bhushan Tyagiji）和社会人类学家里卡·库马尔（Richia Kumar）共同试图分析泰吉吉对印度当前农业危机（特别是旁遮普邦）的替代观点。Tyagiji的观点与典型的另类观点不加批判地赞美“传统”，浪漫化自然，摒弃科学和机器，而观点却令人耳目一新。他的重点是现在。他不被传统或所谓的传统知识迷住。同时，他试图在更广泛的论述和对具有意义和目的的这个世界生活知识的理解中，将科学放回原处。他主张使用科学知识，而不是完全摒弃科学知识，他希望将技术用作也集中重视人工的系统的一部分。他认为，但是在改变农业方式之前，我们必须首先应对以下问题：我们要如何生活以及我们要重视什么。这次对话对帮助我们在农业的未来背景下思考一些棘手的问题做出了很小的贡献。