Community | January 07, 2011 | 23 comments

Crop failure impels Indian farmer suicides

source: http://seeddaily.com/reports/Crop_failure_impels_farmers_suicides_999.htm

JanforGore
As more crops fail in India, the rate of suicides among farmers is climbing.
More than 17,368 Indian farmers killed themselves in 2009, the worst figure for farm suicides in six years, data from the National Crime Records Bureau indicate.

The suicides increased by 1,172 over the 2008 count of 16,196, bringing the total farm suicides since 1997 to 216,500.

"Poverty has assaulted rural India," journalist Palagummi Sainath, an expert on rural poverty in India, told Britain's The Independent newspaper. "Farmers who used to be able to send their children to college now can't send them to school."

Nearly all of the bereaved families of those who have committed suicide, he said, had problems with debts and land loss due to failing crops.

While the causes of poverty are complex, Sainath points to the long-term collapse of markets for farmers' produce. The price of cotton, for example, is 1-12th of the amount it was 30 years ago, in real terms. About half of the suicides are occurring in the four states of the country's Cotton Belt.

Vandana Shiva, a scientist-turned-activist, notes that the problem of farmer suicides started in 1997 when the Indian government removed cotton subsidies and genetically modified varieties of cotton were also introduced.

"Every suicide can be linked to Monsanto," Shiva told The Independent, saying that the biotech firm's modified Bt Cotton caused crop failure and poverty because it requires the use of pesticide and fertilizers.

India's increasingly erratic climate is taking a toll on Indian farmers as well.

In the past, farmers could prepare for droughts when they came every four years or so. Rajasthan, in northwestern India, only emerged from a 10-year drought this summer. And monsoons, which used to arrive once a year, have failed three times in the last 10 years across much of the country.

M.S. Swaminathan, chairman of the National Commission on Farmers, has called for a restructuring of the country's policies to help agriculture, saying the sector is entering a state of serious crisis, The Hindu newspaper reports.

Noting that 45 percent farmers in a national survey said they want to quit farming, Swaminathan said farming has become nonviable.

"Unless we revitalize farming and make our farmers enthusiastic, it is difficult to feed 1 billion people and 1 billion farm animals. It is going to be a difficult period."
  1. groups:
    Community,   Green,   Sustainable Agriculture,   Earth Care,   3 more
  2. tags:
    Environment,  Climate Change,  India,  Poverty,  8 more
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23 comments // Crop failure impels Indian farmer suicides // Video

  • prmadhura
  • royulery
    • -1
      royulery  

    • i love all things india and i wish to defend the suicide culture. there is no common ground to approach american sensibilities about death. we have but one life here and they have an infinite number of them. the dead can float down the ganges without causing alarm, death is a lesser concern. in a few generations when we are a billion, we may do well to adopt their attitudes.

    • 1 year ago
  • GoodGodGuy
  • simha
    • +1
      simha  
    • Image

    • i wish ,the so called rich people,whose name is in ford and other list do something for these people who cannot even feed one daily meal. They claim India is rapidly growing,in what direction.The gap between the rich and poor is too much. People are nothing but selfish,only want to fill their bags,But they want foriegners to come and lift them up.
      Lot of people have too much hidden wealth that could help another India.Shame on them,in 60 years of independence they have become so currupt.
      People sold and gave away everything they had to get the Independence ,so these people could step on one another and accumulate? Blame foriegn companies.
      They should clean up their plates before blaming somebody.No wonder people go out to other countries.
      This should not have happenned if thing went right after freedom stuggle and that too after so many great people gave their whole life.
      Why they are not conducting studies on social aspects leading to this situation and do something that would help the formers rather than blaming BT companies.We do not even care for our own brothers and sisters who are dying with out food.What about those celebrities who get fame becoz of common people,why their pictures not attached next to these hungry children.What is their contribution to the nation.News papers make money telling people that they were in london,the next day in parris.
      A day will soon come when people will butcher each other in streets just for food.

    • 1 year ago
  • JanforGore
    • 0
      JanforGore  
    • simha:

      I couldn't agree with you more. The spirit of Gandhi has been forgotten by those now intent on taking it all for themselves at any cost. The struggles of independence have led them to becoming the same as those they rightfully fought against as has also happened in America and in so many other countries looking for "progress." Greed and the desire to seek so much wealth that it clouds the senses, reason and hearts of humans has done nothing to progress us towards a better future. It is the land and water that are our future. These suicides are indicative of a much deeper problem that is not being dealt with and is a common thread in other areas of the world as well. The victory in India in turning back BT eggplant just last year was also a call for moral justice and food sovereignty and does give me some hope that those who still possess the spirit of Gandhi and Satyagraha will become even stronger, as does the work of Dr. Shiva and those who know the true worth of our planet. Our survival now depends on us never letting that voice die out.

    • 1 year ago
  • ozoneocean
    • -2
      ozoneocean  

    • Actually poor farmers in India have been doing that for a very long time now. It's mainly economic conditions and extended droughts that have been the problem, as well as a *suicide culture that has developed over time (*copycat behaviour, as seen with people who "cut", or popular suicide spots).
      The farmer suicides have a number of causes that have conflated- simplifying the situation and using as a stick to beat Monsanto is not that honest!

      I am against the spread of genetically modified crops too, but I would not use things like this to further my argument.

    • 1 year ago
  • JanforGore
    • 0
      JanforGore  
    • ozoneocean:

      http://soil.an

      Climate change is definitely a factor as are other multinationals like Coca Cola draining and polluting waterways which is why I placed the other video here. I didn't just blame Monsanto, but they are indeed a great part of the spike in these suicides taking place in recent years. It was climate change that brought the prolonged drought and now the unpredictable monsoons that were once predictable, which brings the suicides in line with LIES told to these farmers that these BT seeds would counter the drought and even give them bigger yields. These people were taken advantage of and deliberately lied to by a multinational company that knew from the beginning that more than likely they would see no negligable increase in anything. And even those who may well have seen a bit of an increase now have to deal with pests becoming resistant to the chemicals, which means- you guessed it, more imputs and more damage ultimately to their soil.

      Yet Monsanto took their money for the seeds, pesticides and other imputs which many went into great debt to buy thinking they could repay it when their "big yield" came and made them sign contracts that they did not even understand but were told they could trust which also includes no recourse due to "patent rights." Now, you can say suicides are common, but that in no way negates the added factors these farmers are dealing with that are now spiking them. I suppose for some it is hard to understand the mindset of doing this when everything you work for is taken from you and when you see your livestock die from eating the very plants you were hoping to use to pay your debts realizing this is now something that will only get worse.

    • 1 year ago
  • artemis6
  • coxian_armada
  • JanforGore
  • ejasun
    • +5
      ejasun  
    • Image

    • One Farmer’s Suicide Every 30 Minutes... Also, one in every four suicides in this group was committed using pesticide.

      A significant positive correlation between the "declining farm economy" and "increasing state suicide rates" was also found.

      In short, more than one of every five persons taking his or her life in these States that year was a farmer.

      IN THE U.S. Census occupational population data were used to convert these frequencies into suicide rates. Suicide rates for farmers were found to be greater than rates for transportation workers (truck drivers)

      http://www.stwr.org/food-security-agriculture/one-farmers-suicide-every-30-minut...

    • 1 year ago
  • coolplanet
  • JanforGore
  • MrMxyzptlk
  • coolplanet
  • MrMxyzptlk
  • JanforGore
  • gerardange
    • +4
      gerardange  
    • MrMxyzptlk:

      Hey MrMxyzptlk.... It is real easy to sit around in your underwear on your big fat ass and fling negative jabs from your computer all day and night... Yah, that's the way to do it! Just make rude comments about everything! Regardless if you have zero knowledge or, any of the facts on any of the subjects you comment on... Blah... blah... blah...

      But it still gets down to... What have you ever done... beside making rude comments?

      People on here want intelligent constructive positive thoughts..not by JUST EMPTY BS.

      Maybe you should do more listening and less talking...

      you might learn something.

    • 1 year ago
  • gerardange
    • +2
      gerardange  
    • MrMxyzptlk:

      Hey MrMxyzptlk.... What have you ever done... beside making rude comments?

      People on here want intelligent constructive positive thoughts..not by JUST EMPTY BS.

      Maybe you should do more listening and less talking...

      you might learn something.

    • 1 year ago
  • coolplanet
  • JanforGore
  • JanforGore
  • JanforGore
    • +6
      JanforGore  

    • I find this to be unconscienable.Taking advantage of those with BT cotton seeds they knew would not produce because of drought. Telling them to apply more pesticides and fertilizers using the lie that it would increase yield and make them richer beyond their wildest dreams which cost them more and put them into more debt while making Monsanto richer. Even after suicide, it is usually the wife who then must take over the debts of her husband, and in many cases winds up having to sell the land. Add to this other companies like Coca Cola in their country polluting and taking water to the point where acquifers are running dry as well as the effects of climate change and the now unreliable monsoons added to privitization of food and water as commodities rather than human rights, and you see what globalization does when its only aim is profit at any expense. I would go so far as to say that this is a crime against humanity.

    • 1 year ago
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