Indian Farmers in Crisis– Great Reporting on the Green Revolution
Wednesday, April 22nd, 2009, 12:36 PM
Read/watch this two-part series by NPR, which illustrates the current crisis facing Indian farmers.
Veteran NPR journalist Daniel Zwerdling gives a brief history of the Green Revolution, which encouraged Indian farmers in the ’60’s and ’70’s to abandon traditional farming methods in favor of input-responsive seeds, that were high-yielding when combined with high levels of chemical use and heavy water irrigation.
According to Zwerdling, “Government studies show that farmers have pumped so much groundwater to irrigate their crops that the water table is dropping dramatically, as much as 3 feet every year… [So farmers] keep hiring the drilling company to come back to their fields, to bore the wells ever deeper…” The soil is being gradually destroyed by the drilling and salt levels. The costs of drilling, and remedying the damage that’s been done, is incredibly expensive– prohibitive, in fact, for many Indian farmers, who are already overwhelmed by their debt and are struggling to support their families.
Read the article and share your thoughts. You can find more resources in the Oakland Institute’s Voices from Africa report or in Vandana Shiva’s writings– both share examples for how we can build solutions in the wake of the Green Revolution.
–Deepa
