Basic ingredients of the first green revolution were: HYV seeds with superior genetics; use of chemicals - pesticides and fertilizers; and multiple cropping system supported by the use of modern farm machinery and proper irrigation system.
An interesting question. I will prefer to wait a bit to listen first. Market vagaries and loss of agricultural labourers to further add the misery.Its quite a debatable issue , despite some solid efforts , farmers suicides continues unabated....
This question is also very hard to answer because it should make agricultural scientists reckon with the fallacies that an industrial approach to agriculture has been causing upon most farmers, around the world. The green revolution might have been moved by benign thinking! However, its failure and unfortunate consequences upon million of small scale growers with very limited resources in the developing world suggest (in my opinion) that the costly inputs (hybrid seed, fertilizers, pesticides, irrigation systems, mechanization) cannot be feasible for a majority of environmental and geographic contexts. Unfortunately, under the wave made by the green revolution, capitalist countries supported (and most of these continue to support) the high technology approach making farmers believe that this is the way to go in agriculture. Thus, agribusiness is leading the way, contributing to the extirpation of most family farms around the world in exchange for gigantic monocultures and loss of health and livelihood for rural communities.
multiple factors responsible for farmers suicides in india one among them is agriculture .number one is the income from agriculture is not enough for him to meet his expenditures in changing life style.. education has become costly ..the farmer is sending his kids to corporate schools...hospital expenses .... if any marriage happen means... he has to borrow the money from local money lender...if regular income come from agriculture with good yields and market price... he is in a position to repay ...but income from agriculture is enough to meet his food expenses... how he will pay debts with little income ... thats why an extreme step he is committing suicide... majority suicide age group is 50-60 age...these age group might spend more money on education, health, marriage expenses etc..no way to repay at this age...
Madaka madhan Mohan Thank you for your reply. I agree with there are multi factors responsible for that. One among them is also crop failure. They fail to repay the loan because the harvest is less as compare to the investment. The high productive yield need more chemical fertilizers and pesticides.
Very nice question...actually what green revolution has provided us...By using of high yielding varieties, synthetic chemical fertilizers, pesticides including fungicides, herbicides, insecticides, bactericides and so on crop productivity increased very fast, plants are protected very well and crops became more nutrient or say input responsive...no doubt productivity has increased to a considerable fold...but on the other hand sustainability (including soil health, environment health as well as deteriorated qualitied produce) go down...reason for farmers suicide may not be green revolution as these technologies some how eliminates the labour strength to produce revenue per unit area...but these green revolution technologies may results in some of the uncertainty or vagaries indirectly...some how these technology is responsible for climatic change thereby increasing more risk of crop failure...
Market facilities and lack of remunerative price (net income) may be included in this aspect...
Himanshu Verma Thank you for your reply. Sir, definitely green revolution brought technological revolution in agriculture including high productive yields. The high productive yields is unproductive without use of synthetic fertilizers and pesticides, which is expensive and cost effective for the lower and middle class farmers. Moreover the farmers take loan from local moneylender with high amount of interest or bring synthetic fertilizers and pesticides from village retailer shop in credit basis. When crop failure occurs they take such attempt. So directly of indirectly it also an outcome of green revolution.
@Minaketan sir...
Yes
But there are again lot of factors behind this...as doing suicide or attempting it is totally psychologically controlled act...those farmers who involve in subsistence farming just to meet their family requirements for food, say very small farmers...they got unaffected with this green revolution technology or sustainable agriculture as they got what they require.....
On the other hand large farmers who involve in commercial cultivation (agriculture became a bussiness) want to receive more produce with high income revenues etc..they got more affected ....
Other government policies may also be included like MSP, local market facilities as well as not getting optimum price of their organic crop produce...
As in case of medicinal and aromatic plants, lack of suitable market facilities become a considerable drawback as crop produce has to be needed to process (industry) as perishable in nature but due to unavailability of suitable market to purchase harvested crop produce immediately , farmers are unable to get remunerative outcome though they have obtained higher crop produce per unit area...
Another reason might be uncertainty of the climate in the form of extreme drought, flood, tsunami or other adverse conditions....
"Need a healthy discussion "
Himanshu Verma Thank you for your reply. Definitely there are other causes also but it may an out come of that, because farmer suicide was not found in pre-green revolution era. In 2017 a great meeting of the members of suicidal families was organized in Bargarh under the leadership Krushak sangathan. They were explaining their problem and loan. It is empirical not by theory only.
I agree with multiple factors, one of cause no received crop product rate
Farmer suicides in India refers to the national catastrophe of farmers committing suicide since the 1990s, often by drinking pesticides, due to their inability to repay loans mostly taken from banks. Farmer suicides account for 11.2% of all suicides in India. Activists and scholars have offered a number of conflicting reasons for farmer suicides, such as high debt burdens, poor government policies, corruption in subsidies, crop failure, public mental health, personal issues and family problems.although not directly but it seems that if the green revolution is to blame then the old methods of agriculture were abandoned in which there were no problems already mentioned
Yes. Farmers' suicide is one of many unfortunate products of green revolution. The many books of Dr. Vandana Shiva describe in detail the extirpation of family farms due to an expansion of industrial agriculture, as predicated by the green revolution. Its rethoric (growing more food to feed an increasing population) was very simplistic yet effective in getting support from governments and the agroindustry that profited enrmously from the skyrocketing demand for all the inputs of production (seed, agrichemicals, machinery, etc.). The same tragedy is happening right now with the power of the same agroindustry that now has more sophisticated inputs for sale (transgenic seed, GMOs, drones and more computer-based technologies), with many more farmers worldwide taking their own lives because they cannot out-compete agribusiness.
Farmer produce grains but won't get much returns price what he invested. High yield varieties (HYV) need lot of fertilizer and plant protection chemicals. When the farmer go to market he get paid less for his products because of mediators and unable to return loan amount to bank.
Since last one decade some state governments introduced loan wavier policy which is very bad. The government implemented MSP but didn't show how effectively it is implemented.
In my view, Green Revolution is not reason for farmer suicide. The reason is pricing system of agricultural products (farmer - mediators - vendors/shops - customer)
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