Monsanto Caused an Estimated 150,000 Farmer Suicides

[smartguy911]

Lured by the promise of greater production, farmers are pressured into mortgaging their farms to purchase genetically modified seeds, pesticides, and fertilizer from American companies like Monsanto. Since GM seeds are patented by Monsanto, their repeated use each year requires constant licensing fees that keep farmers impoverished. One bad yield due to drought or other reasons, plunges farmers so deep into debt that they resort to suicide. One study estimates that 150,000 farmers have killed themselves in the past ten years.

http://www.alternet.org/world/147825/bollywood_superstar_aamir_khan_shines_the_spotligh t_on_what%27s_caused_an_estimated_150,000_farmer_s uicides_in_india/

[Dr.3D]

That's why around here, many farmers get crop insurance.

[NiceGoing]

Oh my God!!

[Zippyjuan]

So every suicide by a farmer in India was caused by Monsanto? That is a pretty big leap to make.

Another article on the topic:
http://www.indiatogether.org/2007/nov/psa-mids1.htm

It is important that the figure of 1.5 lakh farm suicides is a bottom line estimate. It is by no means accurate or exhaustive. There are inherent and serious inaccuracies in the NCRB data as they are based on ground data that exclude large groups of people. As Professor Nagaraj puts it: "There is likely to be a serious underestimation of suicides, particularly of farmers' suicides, in these reports. The most important problem is the way a farmer is defined at the ground level: as someone who has a title to land. This is likely, for instance, to leave out tenant farmers and, particularly, women farmers."

The quality of reporting also varies from State to State. For instance, Haryana shows a very low ratio of farm suicides to general suicides. This conflicts with other assessments of the problem in that State. Data from Punjab have also been highly contested by groups monitoring the farm crisis there.

However, even in this flawed data, the trends are clear and alarming. But what has driven the huge increase in farm suicides, particularly in the Big Four or 'Suicide SEZ' States? "Overall," says Professor Nagaraj, "there exists since the mid-90s, an acute agrarian crisis. That's across the country. In the Big Four and some other States, specific factors compound the problem. These are zones of highly diversified, commercialised agriculture. Cash crops dominate. (And to a lesser extent, coarse cereals.) Water stress has been a common feature - and problems with land and water have worsened as state investment in agriculture disappears. Cultivation costs have shot up in these high input zones, with some inputs seeing cost hikes of several hundred per cent. The lack of regulation of these and other aspects of agriculture have sharpened those problems. Meanwhile, prices have crashed, as in the case of cotton, due to massive U.S.-EU subsidies to their growers. Or due to price rigging with the tightening grip of large corporations over the trade in agricultural commodities."

Debt trap

"From the mid-90s onwards," points out Professor Nagaraj, "prices and farm incomes crashed. As costs rose - even as bank credit dried up - so did indebtedness. Even as subsidies for corporate farmers in the West rose, we cut our few, very minimal life supports and subsidies to our own farmers. The collapse of investment in agriculture also meant it was and is most difficult to get out of this trap." ⊕


And even from the OP:

One bad yield due to drought or other reasons, plunges farmers so deep into debt that they resort to suicide.

I guess they control the weather as well.

[Zippyjuan]

Another report: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mallika-chopra/1500-farmers-in-india-com_b_187457.html

Over 1,500 farmers in an Indian state committed suicide after being driven to debt by crop failure, it was reported today. The agricultural state of Chattisgarh was hit by falling water levels.
"The water level has gone down below 250 feet here. It used to be at 40 feet a few years ago," Shatrughan Sahu, a villager in one of the districts, told Down To Earth magazine.

"Most of the farmers here are indebted and only God can save the ones who do not have a bore well." Mr Sahu lives in a district that recorded 206 farmer suicides last year. Police records for the district add that many deaths occur due to debt and economic distress.


The crop failures, which took place in the agricultural state of Chattisgarh, were prompted by falling water levels. Nearby forest depletion and poorly planned government dam projects contributed to the falling water level. Combined with the vicious money-lending schemes that are prevalent in the region, many farmers felt that death was the only option in the face of insurmountable debt.

Suicides by Indian farmers have been an ongoing reality for years -- Vandana Shiva, an Intent Voice, friend and someone I admire tremendously for her advocacy of the land and its people, wrote an article several years ago about farmers committing suicide due to debt.

[ScoutsHonor]

Monsanto = Big Brother.

So they sure don't deserve to be defended.

(And please spare me the nitpicking arguments - "Not EVERY suicide was caused by
Monsanto".....)
:rolleyes::rolleyes:

[dannno]

Monsanto and the central banks that are causing all of the other problems may as well be the same entity.

[Seraphim]

Monsanto and the central banks that are causing all of the other problems may as well be the same entity.

"I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around [the banks] will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs. "

Companies like Monsanto, "Defence" contractors (AKA WAR LOVING COMPANIES) all get their loans from the Fed aka the paper aristocracy.

Cut off their supply of endless paper credit and watch them drop to their knees to us.

[Deborah K]

Here are two videos that are a MUST see to learn about what they are doing to our food and our farmers. And the gov't is completely complicit. Our food is in their control.

Food Inc.
[ʳƷ¹«Ë¾].Food.Inc._ÔÚÏßÊÓƵ¹Û¿´_ÍÁ¶¹ÍøÊÓƵ ʳƷ¹«Ë¾ Food Inc. µçÓ° ÄÚÄ» Ó¢Óï (http://www.tudou.com/programs/view/GrUMB7XVNYM/)

The World According to Monsanto:
http://twilightearth.com/environment-archive-2/the-world-according-to-monsanto-full-documentary/

[RedStripe]

Monsanto. What is Monsanto? Monsanto is a corporation. A corporation that benefits from many things, including government-sponsored R&D, corporate person-hood & "individual" rights, and intellectual property - including the right to "own" the very genetic make-up of life itself, among other things.

What Monsanto is, above all, is an illustration of how corporate America, the corporate elite, and the economic core of our country is not divided between what is "public" and "private", but is rather a fusion of both public and private into the ugliest monster imaginable.

In some ways, one might consider Monsanto to be "private" merely in the nominal sense of the term.. but that's exactly what the term has been reduced to...

Welcome to State-Capitalism. Enjoy your stay.