Why farmers commit suicide ?

Recently a prominent web site conducted a POLL . It was related to farmer’s suicides.

They asked five questions.

Why are farmers committing suicide?:

Psychological imbalance

Climatic changes

GM(Genetically Modified) Seeds

Are they committing suicides?

Government Policies

VOTE

This is surprising . It looks the questions have come from urban comfort. These kind of ‘intelligent ‘ journalists are ruling the ruse. I remember having seen a debate program in NDTV while I was in Delhi. There were about 100 people in the audience. The debate was about issues to be discussed in parliament. The anchor asked “how many of you support farmer’s cause?” To my utter surprise there was literally no one to raise the hands!. The anchor also got surprised he then said “ What is this ? are you guys not eating anything ? “

They all laughed it out and continued with another topic. This is how urban India thinks of agriculture.

Look how easily they decided upon five points. Are there no other points? Where is the economic hardship? Rise in price of products in general and sky rocketing labour charges? Is there a comparable increase in price of agriculture products?

What about change in life styles? I think in my home state that is the main reason. Climate change and consequent untimely rain is a recent incident. Since that has happened to many people government has plan to compensate the losses. Indebtedness is another major cause. Government is addressing this issue in an awkward way. The writing off of loans will only encourage farmers to take more loans. There will be more collective and continued demands to write off future loans and it may be politically inspired also. What are we going to do?. Tax payer’s hard earned money will be wasted like this. A whopping 60,000 crores! And the politicians take pride on this. They do not care how it is distributed. As long as they can project this amount in election meetings that is enough! It is clear that the government do not have enough machinery to verify the loan and check the distribution. Honest people who paid up their loan suffering much hardship will be neglected and unscrupulous guys who did not pay up will be rewarded.

Coming back to Changing life styles. In Kerala, mainly farmers from Wayanad are committing suicide. I would say besides all other things Change in life style is a major cause here. Earlier these farmers lived in remote areas inaccessible by road. They lived with minimum things. They had very limited needs. Now there are roads to every nook and corner and there is electricity too. Along with electricity all gadgets came. Television is the most important thing. It spoiled the mindset. The demand for things hither to unheard and unused increased dramatically. More shops and shopping complexes was the result. More avenues to spend money drained the purse. But there was no income to cope with this. The prices of agri products reduced because of globalization. Import of pepper, copra, cardamom and other spices from Sri Lanka, Africa etc. caused less demand in local markets. The labour charges increased considerably because of leftist interference and unionism.. Since the family’s life style changed the farmer had to meet the demands. He wanted more money to live. On the other side his income decreased. The banks and local moneylenders came forward merrily. Loan melas of Wayand were famous. Every bank had conducted loan melas. Couple of years … and the Japthi notices starts arriving. It reaches point of eviction from houses. What the poor weak minded farmer will do? Other than deciding to leave the place quietly? Sometimes en-masse with family.

Things have not been corrected or amended. No new ideas are discussed to thwart the problem. People are still living in same conditions. This 60,000 crores write off will not do anything. UPA and allies are thinking that will fetch more votes. We have to wait and see. The money is going to go to different hands. Come next budget this 60,000 crores will have to be doubled!

In order to sustain economically many farmers are turning to cash crops. This has resulted in food problem. Swami Nathan is at the helms now and green revolution is failing.

What’s the way out ?

I think large scale co-operative farming or inviting big multinational corporations by opening up Agriculture sector to foreign investments is the only way. There will be many people opposing this suggestion. They would suggest public sector undertakings or Indian companies for the job. They would also argue that we will be slaves of MNCs.

But I think ultimately that is what is going to happen. We have no know-how or technology to mass produce agriculture products. Neither do we have storage capacity or storage technology. There is no visible invention or progress in these sectors. India is a fertile land. It can produce the rice needed for the world. Sure these small time farmers will become employees of MNCs. But their living standard will increase. Small farmers with small land holdings should cultivate vegetables,fruits, spices & medicinal plants not food grains. That should be left to big corporations. Government has to help the marginal farmers in this way and not by writing off the loans. I think this everyone will benefit. India government will become richer. We will control the food market. Americans helped the Gulf states to drill for oil. Both benefited but now the Gulf states control the oil price.

Wrong perceptions about our rights and freedom should vanish. Leftists will oppose it in a big way because of their inherent decease called ‘USmania.’ But time will tell they were wrong at every turn.

We are now waiting for crop failures, farmer’s suicides, and the food problem.

We need calamities to learn.

We need hundred of thousands of deaths and destruction to act.

Until that time let’s sleep.