One of the biggest concerns, that our country today is facing is that of variation of crop production and exponential increment in the failure rate of different crops that we produce. These variations don’t have any fixed pattern actually, it could be because of environmental, rain-based, man-made reasons. We barely tend to glimpse what's profound inside, and have no clue how's it influencing the life of our nation's agriculturists, isn’t it?
How often you have bargained from the vegetable vendors and not even once from the supermarket? The answer is more obvious than the question itself. Farmers also known as the “ann-daata” in Hindi or the one who is the producer of food are ignored badly. Although they produce the very much bread for every individual of our country, they are living a miserable life in debt with loans, fear of crop failure, market fluctuations of price rate, and what not. They were hardly given any food compensations in case of market un-stability or crop failure. Such were the instances where farmers have attempted suicide due to these problems. According to reports of National Crime Records Bureau of India, suicides of 8,007 farmers and 4.595 agricultural laborers were reported in India in 2015. There is no government report on farmer suicides published after that from 2016-17 and the major agitations by farmers in these two years. On looking more deeply, the max number was set to 18,241 in the year 2004. And the suicide rate was so fatal that it is now termed as ‘agrarian crisis’. It accounts for almost 11.2% of total suicides in India. Even Indian media does not seem to be much concerned, as they are more interested in extravagant news for increasing their TRP and trying to set up a new record on a day to day basis. For what reason is that, in spite of the fact that we have so much all around cutting edge in the field of innovation, we are as yet hearing such cases relatively consistently? If you don’t believe this, why not check today’s newspaper, you might have a solid likelihood of finding no less than one instance of it. There were many cases where farmers protested against the government, but no proper outcome was received from the Government’s side.
India, which is an agrarian country with a dependency rate of 70% of people directly or indirectly upon agriculture. Today we have such a large number of new inventive and diverse strategies for agribusiness that has enhanced the profitability rate, as well as the nature of grains which are currently created, are significantly more superior, than that which was pre-existing. Not even that, this era is more focused on producing crops without the use of pesticides and others toxicants which is harmful to health and environment that is Organic farming. Scientists are researching and bringing forward genetically modified superior seeds. But we failed to understand the very basic problem that needs to be checked as soon as possible. Although our country is progressing towards growth development with the adage of “sabka saath sabka vikaas”, still there are farmers who are illiterate and don’t know about the new methods which are available to them. In addition to that credit givers are exploiting them to the fullest with high return rates. Although environmental factors like monsoon, drought etc are not in our control, researches and predictions from scientific background could be provided to them, so that they can plan well in advance for these variations. It’s already high time for action, simple expressions of guarantees won't be sufficient to annihilate this issue. Old government policies need to be changed, new methods of production should be given a try, and subsidies should be increased with the increasing inflation. Regular checks should be made on the conditions of productivity, and the rate of illiteracy should decrease exponentially.
If this crisis is not being taken under control, in the coming time there are high chances of a drop in growth rate, and the opening of other pitfalls which might look small but are very deep within and it might affect the stability of our country. These farmers just like us are citizens of India, have family and responsibilities. But to cope up with such economical standards in the present day is undeniably difficult for them. They have little resources to work with. And for them, there is much more to lose than to win. It’s time that we have to venture forward and look into this problem with a more serious and concerned approach. Because if we fail to do so, there will still remain a gap between rustic and urban India, and we can’t afford to lose them, because without them India would never be able to march the beats with other successful countries of the world in the coming time
