Save our India ! Save our keystone!

" SAVE OUR INDIA! for Every 30 Minutes: A Farmer Suicides in India"

"An Agrarian crises soon in India", news needs to be thrown to every citizen and sought solution. I am blogging this article on the interest of creating public awareness and cognizance. I want everyone to spread this and throw some light over this issue.


It's official. The country has seen over a quarter of a million farmers’ suicides between 1995 and 2010. The National Crime Records Bureau’s latest report on ‘Accidental Deaths & Suicides in India’ places the number for 2010 at 15,964.That brings the cumulative 16-year total from 1995 — when the NCRB started recording farm suicide data —to 2,56,913, the worst-ever recorded wave of suicides of this kind in human history.



Prologue : 


India is an Agrarian country with around 60% of its people directly or indirectly depend upon Agriculture.


Almost everyone know the reason behind farmers suicides in India,including the government. It is the politicians who want to do politics upon the death of the poor souls. Hailing from an agricultural country I shed tears for the farmers suicide. India is not shining, rather it is fading by losing the precious souls who feed us.

During the year 1965-1969, India was exacerberated with life-threatening  drought, the whole India was dismayed by that. So the Hon'ble Prime Minister of that period Indira Gandhi contrived the "GREEN REVOLUTION" on the 4th Five year plan,  though 1st and 2nd  Five Year plans were concentrated mainly on Indian agriculture. India started to build new Dams and food repositories. Soon after that India attained the surplus state (i.e) India became self-sufficient country.


Are we preserving the self-sufficient state we attained? Absolutely NO, with the growing population and modernization,  We  are all  forgetting the backbone of our country. At the time of our republic, Our country had 58.6% of cultivating land but now 20% of that are changed to residential or industrial areas.


 Chemicals and Drought produce zero yield in late 1980s: Although these farming methods worked for several years for many farmers, they began to show adverse effects in the late 1980s. The overuse of chemical fertilizers caused the soil to become infertile.  This, coupled with a reduction in the genetic variety of crops,and three years of drought led to zero yield. If this level persists, at one stage of time, India will be put in the condition to buy even agri-products from other countries which we are cultivating now.


Agriculture is the main reason for any Country's wealth, Without giving importance to agriculture a country can grow its economy rapidly but soon it will be battered down because of the weak basement.  



Alarming Facts :


Agriculture minister Sharad Pawar's home state Maharashtra tops the list. It has the worst record for the 10th consecutive year. Maharashtra posts a dismal picture with over 50,000 farmers killing themselves in the country's richest State. It also remains the worst State for such deaths for a decade now. Close to two-thirds of all farm suicides have occurred in five States: Maharashtra, Karnataka, A.P., Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh.


The data show clearly that the last eight years were much worse than the preceding eight. As many as 1,35,756 farmers killed themselves in the 2003-10 period. For 1995-2002, the total was 1,21,157. On average, this means the number of  farmers killing themselves each year between 2003 and 2010 is 1,825 higher than the numbers that took their lives in  the earlier period. Which is alarming since the total number of farmers is declining significantly. Compared to the 1991 Census, the 2001 Census saw a drop of over seven million in the population of cultivators (main workers). In other words, farm suicides are rising through the period of India's agrarian crisis, even as the number of farmers is shrinking.

•  More than 2,56,918 farmers have taken their  lives since 1995.
•  86.5 percent of farmers who took their own lives were financially indebted .
•  Their average debt was about Rs.40,000.
•  On average, there has been one farmer’s suicide every 30 minutes since 2002.

Why is it happening?

• 15 years of economic reforms have given farmers access to expensive and promising biotechnology
•  These reforms have not led to crop insurance, land irrigation, or enough bank loans? Reforms opened Indian farmers to global competition, such as with the United States and UK who receive over $18 billion a year in subsidies.
•  For farmers in India such foreign subsidies have driven down the price of crops in the global market, such as cotton
• Crops Producers are not given power to fix the price of the crops they cultivate. 

Farmers receive minimal financial support

•  In order to compete, many farmers turned to high-cost seeds, fertilizers and pesticides, believing in easier returns.
•  Modified seeds cost nearly twice as much as ordinary ones, necessitating larger loans.
•  There has been minimal financial support from the government for small farmers. 
•  Many small farmers don’t qualify for bank credit, forcing farmers to turn to moneylenders, who charge up to 20% interest on a four-month loan.  
•  As collateral, farmers often sign away the title to their land.