Instead of teaching the farmers’ community how to save their hard earned, whatever little, money they earn during a hard toil in hot sun, high temperatures, heavy rains, chilly winter and low temperatures facing natural calamities like floods or drought... farmers are taught or made to spend more... so that every greedy shark or vulture of the modern society can suck the last drop of blood present in a farmer’s body.
Sad, pathetic and ironical indeed! But this is the big real picture of not only Indian farmers but also the world all over... the Powerful MNCs manufacturing Poisonous Chemical Fertilizers and Pesticides, the Market Lobby, the Faulty Government Policies; The Financial Institutions, The Insurance Sector; The Heavy Industries manufacturing Tractor, Water Pumps and Drip Irrigation etc... and of course not forgetting the callous MEDIA! Everyone is there to outdo each other to suck the last drop of blood...
Every year when the sowing season arrives, suddenly the market declares that there is shortage of fertilizer, pesticides and also the hard selling seeds... followed by the government declaring raids at various godowns of the traders (no name is ever mentioned and punished ever severely) and with the help of Media these news are highlighted as if these are the real crisis... the fact is that such a scene is created by the MEDIA to make the helpless farmers shell out more money for their yearly requirements because they simply cannot afford to delay the sowing process... they are left with no option but to borrow money from moneylenders, banking institutions and anybody who will give them money at such a time... the high interest rates demanded is agreed upon not because they have loads of money but because they are left with no option at the time of distress.
These loans are given by village moneylenders, banks, rich traders who sell fertilizers, pesticides and seeds, micro-finance companies and the interest rates are always high... the idea is to trap the farmers into the debt trap, so that they simply cannot escape from their clutches... and when the harvesting season arrives... all these vultures and sharks are there to collect their money with interest and the farmers are left high and dry... and if there are natural calamities, then the farmers are doomed as they are pushed to the edge to find no option but to succumb to suicide. Intelligent farmers will never succumb to such tactics but majority do as they have no other option because they are living hand to mouth existence!
The Government Policies (the Policy makers are so-called highly educated officials, who have no idea of the ground realities or knowledge as they live in air-conditioned offices and don the suits) are made in such a manner that whatever the above mentioned sharks have left, the government sharks will suck the last drop of blood from the farmers’ bodies... right from the irrigation infrastructure to the last stage of storing food grains, every sector lacks proper infrastructure and whether there is bumper crop (one always hear in the media claimed by the Agriculture Minister that year after year we have bumper crops and yet the prices of food grains keep rising, why?), there will be more wastage so that the kith and kin of all the political leaders can make more money from the rotten food grains to turn it into liquor and when there is shortage of the produce, then automatically prices will rise more for the rich traders to make more money while the farmers lose in both the accounts. If the crop is bumper, the MSP (Minimum Support Price) will be less and when there is shortfall then the government will not buy the produce with the Higher MSP...
The Insurance sector fleece the farmers by claiming that the whole region is not affected by the natural calamity, so the individual farmer cannot claim crop insurance... all the fine prints are written in such a clever manner that no one really goes through all of them (even the so-called educated city folks, so forget about the illiterate farmers)... The farmers’ community are provided with more money to buy motorcycle, spend money on consumer products like TV, Dish Antennas, Fridge and what not (I am certainly not against farmers buying all these luxury items if they have saved enough to spend on such items without giving high interest rates to get into the debt trap).... oh yes, one cannot forget how the high-end medical industry juice out to suck the blood of the poor with everything having become so costly that even a middle class city folks feel the pinch to meet the medical expenses when one is sick or hospitalized.
All these while, the MEDIA instead of carrying inspiring stories of various successful models that have fetched great results for few farmers in various region, carry out sickening stories of farmers’ suicide quoting high numbers of deaths, without really mentioning the real reasons behind the suicide... (the other fact is often never mentioned as urban suicide rate are higher than the rural suicide rate) this piece of information is more dangerous than anything else mentioned above because the greedy politicians encash such news to their benefits to mislead the farmers community... thereby spreading more depressing state of mind what with the farmers losing every hope... the other day, I was interacting with one of the American activists, who informed me that even in the US of A, farmers have been succumbing to suicide, much to my surprise. He even informed me how the government covers up all such happenings by controlling the MEDIA, so that the world will not know the reality. The job of the MEDIA is very responsible and they can, if they want but will never, influence a great deal in changing faulty policies of the government but NO, they simply won’t because the fact is that all the media houses are in the hands of Powerful MNCs...
Farmers’ community in France is on the verge of extinction, so are many of them in Japan, UK farmers are succumbing to suicide, California is facing Agriculture crisis and all the above mentioned reasons are as evident in all the countries worldwide, from the small island nation Fiji to Canada, Continent nation Australia to Island nation Philippines... everywhere the poor farmers have become the great source for the rich leech to suck their last drop of blood! Yes, my dear citizen of the world, the farmers are being pushed to the edge... the more of them die, the more fertile land is up for grabbing for the rich industrialists worldwide!
My heart bleeds for the community who feed the world but their selfless act and hard labour is being rewarded by killing them mercilessly... this is certainly not the world anyone would love to live... and the world that we humans have created... it has to stop and stop sooner otherwise when there will be no farmers left, what will happen to your children and grandchildren?
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