Famous saying goes as JAIN JAWAN AND JAI KISAN.. Such is the respect we offer to our kisan in India(previously).
In this country agriculture is treated as its backbone, meaning that the country’s focus should majorly reside in this area, but is it really happening? Probably this is the only question which doesn’t require any options the answer is raised as “NO”. Government builds the road, parks, schools, police security, bus facility etc.., in cities and towns being in a daydream that they are the representation of the country. Whereas full two-thirds (67 percent) of India’s labor force of more than 450 million people is employed in agriculture, which accounts for about 23 percent of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP). Another 26 percent of the GDP is accounted for by industry and 47 percent by services. The CIA World Factbook estimated the division of the GDP to be slightly different, indicating agriculture at 25 percent.
When are villages the source of the generation then why villages are not
facilitated on par of with cities? Is this the way we should treat our backbone. They are not slaves to the country they are the pillars of the country. This point has to be churned in everybody heart, then only a country can become super power, not by any sort manufacturing industries, IT companies etc..,
The other side of the issues concerning agriculture is in the production of agricultural products. Companies like Monsanto in the name BT products running a big strategy to break the backbone of India. Seeds which are produced are spoiling the fertility of the soil by killing the soil bacteria. A simple example is in previous days I remember in the rice crop we got we use to keep some seeds for next crop and sell remaining seeds but it is not happening now because the present seeds were unable to result in a plant, when there were unable to give a plant how can we think of those grains can give strength to us?
Though this is a big failure and rejected by many countries why India is sheltering all such kind of companies and nowadays India has become the very big market to sell all things which were banned outside India. For example, lets us take Monsanto:
- Fined in France for false advertising
- Monsanto was fined $19,000 in a French court on 26 January 2007 for misleading the public about the environmental impact of its herbicide Roundup.
- A former chairman of Monsanto Agriculture France was found guilty of false advertising for presenting Roundup as biodegradable and claiming that it left the soil clean after use.
- Monsanto’s French distributor Scotts France was also fined 15,000 euros.
- Both defendants were ordered to pay damages of 5,000 euros to the Brittany Water and Rivers association and 3,000 euros to the CLCV consumers group.
Figure: Crop coverage of Bt cotton and farmer suicides over time in Madhya Pradesh India, before and after the introduction of Bt cotton in 2002. Source: Wikipedia
Why our government is forcing farmers to use artificial fertilizers is never understood by anyone?
Over years the input prices have been on an upswing. The costs of seeds, fertilizer, chemical pesticides, and machinery have gone through the roof. As UNCTAD states, while the input prices are going up, the output prices have remained stagnant. As a result, the entire farm equation has gone topsy-turvy. The rich countries were the first to sense this, and knowing that the markets will not be able to do justice to farmers, they brought in direct income support for farmers. Between 1995 and 2009, the US alone has paid a quarter of a trillion as farm subsidies. Farmers not only get “direct support, they also received the benefit of “counter-cyclic payments, “market loss payments and subsidies for crop insurance and now for bio-fuel production. On an average the wealthiest 10% US farmers have walked away with $ 445,127 in subsidies in the past 15 years, small farmers have managed $ 8,862 in the same period. While US farmers can plan to go on a cruise because of these subsidies, more than 2, 50,000 Indian farmers have taken to the gallows in the same period.
In an interview Prof. Devinderji (an agricultural scientist) stated a beautiful example, as follows:
“Let me illustrate with what happened in the case of agriculture. India has the second biggest public sector research infrastructure in the world. The 50-odd agricultural universities (and approximately the 105 national institutes) were actually set up under the Land Grant system of education, research, and extension that we borrowed from America. G B Pant University of Agriculture and Technology at Pantnagar was the first university set up by US AID. The university research and education system was therefore tailored and anchored to the American model of farming. The education curriculum and the textbooks came from the US. I remember when I was a student some 30 years back I used to read a textbook of soils written by two American soil scientists. The same book is still in the curriculum. Nothing wrong, you would say. I agree. But that book was for temperate soils, and not tropical soils
This is because Indian farm economists have misled farmers to believe that the more they produce the more will be their income. If this was true, the USA and the European Union wouldn’t have pumped so much of financial support, including direct income, to keep the farm sector alive. In the Netherlands, for instance, the average farm income is 265 higher than that of an average household. This is simply because these farmers receive direct income support. Withdraw Green Box subsidies under WTO, and I can tell you agriculture in America and Europe will collapse [WHAT ARE GREEN BOX SUBSIDIES UNDER wto].”
Result:
The final result of all that happened can be lucidly presented by National Crime Records Bureau of India, that more than 1,00,900 Indian farmers took their own lives between 1997 and 2012. This was even confirmed by the International Food Policy Research Institute, Washington DC that: “Numbers on the actual share of farmers committing suicide who cultivated cotton, let alone Bt cotton. The potential role of Bt cotton varieties in the observed discrete increase in farmer suicides in certain states and years, especially during the peak of 2004 in Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra.”
The most irony and pathetic part is this company which is responsible for all these deaths still has its corporate offices in India and sells their seeds with government discounted price… If 20 people die in a bomb blasts our government takes it very seriously and try to chase those terrorists and kill them and moreover public’s patriotic raises to the height of Himalayas. Since, we got freedom, hardly, in India due to terrorism not even 50,000 people might have died. Still, we take terrorism very seriously. But what about this. where, since 1995 to till now more than 1,00,000 farmers were killed by the fertilizers company. Isn’t this much dangerous than terrorism? then why have public or governments responded this as a terrorist act and punish these idiots?? The reason is simple we don’t know what is patriotism and lacked humanity in our Country…We are used to a terroristic mindset where humanity has no sense. This nation lives on the blood sweat of farmers and when these many farmers were called we never acted upon!!! what a pity !!!!! and
Farming is treated as a cheap and much worse than Prostitution, where farmers were treated as a backward, abandoned and untouchable caste!!!
At least, for this reason, we should call our country as MOST ADVANCED AND DEVELOPED NATION, where technology is the food!!!!
Irrespective of this much havoc, Agricultural situation is never considered as an emergency situation and national security threat and acted upon… THIS IS TO BE TREATED AS BIGGEST NATIONAL SECURITY THREAT AND FOUGHT!!
JIO India with no sense of Life….. JIo an ashamed Life