H16852
Headlines : Human RightsIndia pledges £7.6bn to combat rural suicides
At least 166,000 small farmers have committed suicide in India since 1997 – an astonishing mortality rate. Small farmers have been accumulating massive levels of debt – paying for fertilizers, pesticides and genetically modified seeds. Meanwhile, the benefits of the “green revolution” have started to tail off as pests have developed resistance to commonly used (cheap) pesticides, while soil erosion has intensified and global markets have become more competitive, hitting commodity producers.
The Indian government is now about to bail out small farmers with a £7.6bn package – but this will not solve the problems of debt, unsustainable practices, lack of investment and structural bias against agricultural producers.
Indian news site Sify reports, meanwhile, that the package will help only those farmers who are indebted to government banks. According to the Communist opposition, the two thirds of small farmers who are primarily indebted to private money-lenders will therefore be left out.
[Posted By Szamko]Republished from The Guardian
India’s government moved yesterday to end the practice of suicides in bankrupted rural communities with a £7.6bn bailout for small farmers.
In a populist measure which analysts believe heralds early elections, Palaniappan Chidambaram, the finance minister, said the plan would be a “one-off” rescue package for farmers brought about by “stories of great distress”.
In India millions are driven to despair by their inability to pay off loans of a few hundred pounds. Figures show that more than 166,000 farmers have killed themselves since 1997 – a death almost every half an hour. The farm sector is a key part of the economy, employing two-thirds of India’s 1.1 billion population.
India has the fastest growing of the world’s big economies after that of China. It grew 9.6% last year, its fastest in 18 years. Saying that the boom had seen a section of the rich “get very rich”, Chidambaram said he wanted “to make growth more inclusive” for those left behind.
Posted by Szamko
Just tries to tell the truth.
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Posted by gaanjah_mama on Saturday, November 17th 2007
To call this program a ‘welfare package’ is a travesty. Compensation to widows, fatherless children and indebted through usury smallholders is not in the vision statement of this grate ‘humanitarian’ initiative. Just more spin for the publicity machine to benefit the ruling party before they get turfed out for the next bunch of welfare bums(gov’t/mafia). Globalization of agri-business must be reversed if small diversified farmers and their families are to survive, let alone flourish. Otherwise, we may find our children subsisting/or not on tainted soylent green.