/.../ The final tragedy is due to an accumulation of factors ; to cultivate Bt Cotton is four times more expensive than with the traditional seeds, then the expected yield is not always there - this variety needs a good irrigation - and the buying price for cotton has gone down year after year, based on the world rates. American subsidized cotton that arrives in India is 40% less expensive than the local one, and moreover the Indian State has put an end to its policy of public aid since two years, it doesn’t guarantee the buying of the whole production any longer. In the best of cases, the production will cost 20% more than the selling price. The farmer incessantly asks for credits, first to the bank, but as land credit has considerably gone down into the countryside, and the banker refusing another loan before first one has been paid back, the peasants have to turn to private money-lenders using an exorbitant interest rate. A merciless stranglehold. It’s complete cynicism considering that the buyers are more and more the people selling the seeds…and the private money-lenders themselves ! The great majority of the peasants who ended up excessively indebt and who committed suicide had gone to genetic cotton. « India is taking the direction of wiping out smallholding farming in favour of corporate farming. That’s what the decks are being cleared for. The indian farmers are the last surviving body of small farmers in the world. They’re being finished. The agricultural policy is one of calculated neglect and gutting of agriculture. (…) What is Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar doing for farmers ? He wants us all to be out of business and hand over the land to US companies on contract. » (P. Sainath Rural Affairs Editor at The Hindu).
Finalist at PhotoEspana Ojodepez Volkswagen Award 2008, Spain.
To read pictures’ captions click on the images hereunder.
In the Vidharba region, cotton harvest is in full swing.
Thousands of growers have been on strike for days.
They protest against a new drop in the buying price of their production.
But they’ll have to give up; bringing food to their families is a stronger cause.
The cotton buyers seldom are, irony of fate,
the moneylenders that make the farmers go into an endless debt spiral.
Until death seems to be the only way out.
Suresh Sardar Chawan commited suicide on september 14, 2006. He had five children.
His wife stays alone with four daughters, another tragedy in India…
Vidharba is the most affected Indian region by farmers suicides.
Maroti Pachna Potrajwar, 62, commited suicide. His debt was 40.000 Roupies high (690 euros).
An ad for Monsanto genetically modified “Bt” cotton.
