Sunday, February 6, 2011

WHAT THE FARMERS NEED - I (6th Feb 2011)


Nature has provided sufficient resources for the human civilization to survive in the most trying times. It is the greed, ever since the real civilization started to exist, that has seen everything being destroyed in front of all of us. While many die of hunger, there are just a few, who hoard everything to such an extent that many are crushed in their wheels of greed. Farmers have, ever since humans have learned to cultivate and do farming, been the only community who have been selflessly growing food for their families and the nation in spite of being exploited the most. Throughout the globe, a mere look and you will know farmers everywhere are suffering a tremendous pressure to continue with farming, what with everything is against them with almost a negligible amount of the REAL support from the respective government... be it the farmers of UK, France, Japan, African Countries or else the smaller countries like Philippines, Indonesia, Bangladesh... almost in maximum countries they are not able to even recover the money they invest in agriculture due to various problems and policies of the market... only to succumb into the vicious circle of debt once for all.


In a highly advanced country like Japan, where even the sowing of paddy are being done by computers...( http://pinktentacle.com/2010/07/photos-rice-paddy-art-2010/the villagers of Inakadate village in Japan are facing a situation where in farmers have no choice but to leave the age-old profession and move towards cities to find alternative means of labour to survive another day. A friend from UK disclosed that even farmers in their country are facing much hardship because of GM Crops high priced seeds, high priced poisonous chemical fertilizers & pesticides with less output, high wages for farm labourers and the vicious middlemen lobby... that a few of them have committed suicide to escape the wrath of hard labour with more sufferings to repay debt. Students from France, who visited to explore Vidarbha also revealed how things are so-so wrong in their lovely country... in fact, the French farmers are already a diminishing breed and the worst crises in decades have further unsettled the agriculture sector fuelled by falling prices and rocketing production costs (http://www.france24.com/en/20100523-french-farmers-turn-champs-elysees-green). Almost in every country the dominant force of GM to control everything related to agriculture and food industries are seeing a trend when every farmer will stop farming in very near future.


There is no escape for a farmer’s family, who are living hands-to-mouth life... instead of teaching them saving, there are vicious financing companies who are hell bent to suck even the last drop of blood from the body with skeletons visible in today’s modern times. In the earlier times, a farmer always had his pair of bullock to plough the fields and he used to think more than ten thousand times before taking a small amount on loan from the village moneylenders... for the simple reason that his bullocks or the piece of land will be put as collateral and if he is not able to pay the loan, he would lose the cattle or the land. So a farmer would prefer to live in misery but would never dare to take that dreaded loan, which will ultimately take his life. However, with the modern invention of banking and financial institutions, money have overflowed in villages by greedy corporate companies, who lure their prospective customers – the poor villagers with thousands and thousands at their disposal, knowing well, the poor may die but will ultimately pay the huge amount of interests slowly each month.

What made the farmers of today to take up loan from various financial institutions? The rising price of everything related to producing crops have surely taken a toll on the farmers’ community worldwide... then they have personal need like marriage of daughters, medical expenses have become very high especially for the villagers, who are exposed to poisonous chemical fertilizers & pesticides, deaths, festivals, building concrete homes, higher education of the children etc etc... With no other alternative means of earning money, the farmers succumb and suicide follows soon because of depression and stressful living. A headline is born and soon there are politics being played by ruling and opposition parties... but what happens to the farmers’ families who have lost the only bread winner?

What the farmers need? No one really cares and instead of providing them what they need, they are misled to see the glamorous and larger-than-life that others are leading, which has got no connection at all...

.... to be continued...

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