To protect nature and
people's rights to knowledge, biodiversity, water and food.
The Farmers’ Crisis
We believe in “Uttam – Kheti, Madhyam – Vyapar, Neech – Naukri.” India’s small farmers produce more diversity, more food and nutrition per acre than farmers in industrialised countries. Even today, they feed more than 1.3 billion people.
Then why are Indian farmers committing suicide today?
The root cause is the separation of agriculture from nutrition, and from ecology.
For 10000 years we have farmed to produce nourishment for the soil and society. The combination of the “Green Revolution” in Punjab (imposed in the 1960’s) and the corporate globalisation “reforms” (which started in the 1990’s) have created policies for “Annadata Dukhi Bhava”, undermining our 10,000 year civilisational heritage of Earth first and farmers first policies. The dominant policies of agriculture today, driven by global corporations, are corporate profits first, farmers last, the earth lost.
The consequence is a rapid unfolding of social and ecological non sustainability, threatening our farmers and the future of भारत as a living, life giving civilisation. Our agriculture is eroding, down to a toxic blueprint designed by the poison cartel. 3,18,000 farmers have committed suicide since 1995 – when globalisation of agriculture flagged off the hijack of our seeds, our agriculture, our food systems. The suicides continue.
Now farmers have started to wake the nation up, to the farming crisis, with the strike in Maharashtra and MP. Instead of gratitude and justice, they got bullets. This is not what democracy looks like, from any angle, with any filter, with or without spin. This is not the expression of our civilisational values.
The suicides are concentrated in regions where the Green Revolution has invaded agriculture – destroying diversity, destroying indigenous agriculture, destroying farmers self reliance, destroying soil and water. Suicides are taking place where globalisation policies have destroyed the diversity of crops and diversity of markets. Farmers are growing monocultures and are dependent on a single buyer – the government or a corporation – to buy what they grow, as a commodity for trading posts.
The Roots of the contemporary Agrarian Crisis lie in 50 years of the chemical intensive, capital intensive, monoculture based “Green Revolution”, and 20 years of corporate globalisation, which has transformed Indian Agriculture into a market for costly seed and chemical inputs and a supplier of cheap commodities. Continuing on the path shaped by global corporations and US interests will only make the crisis worse. Getting rid of the small farmer has been the intention of Industrial Agriculture. Getting rid of India’s small farmers has been the aim of every government since globalisation was forced upon us. It continues to be the main call after the farmers protests started in June 2017. Farming without farmers is the new slogan of industry. But this means farming with more fossil fuels, more chemicals. The end of farmers, is the end of real food, an end to producers; it is the rise of the processors.
We must change our agriculture from a chemical intensive, capital intensive, debt and dependency creating, path to a biodiversity intensive, ecologically intensive, zero external input system which rejuvenates the earth and farmers prosperity, and with it provides real food to citizens and creates true prosperity of a people and their nation.
The Green Revolution works against the Earth. It is based on war chemicals, and manifests as a war against the earth, against the farmers, our Annadatas, and against innocent citizens suffering from an epidemic of chronic diseases because they are being condemned to eat nutritionally empty, toxic commodities, instead of food.
Debt for purchase of costly non renewable seeds and unnecessary toxic inputs is the primary reason for farmers suicides and farmers protests
Indian civilisation is based on gratitude, to our farmers and all beings who contribute to our food.
“Annadata Sukhibhava”.
1. Poison Colonies
By Dr. Vandana Shiva