ISIS Press Release 12/10/06
Stem Farmers’ Suicides with Organic Farming
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Amid a rising epidemic of farmers’ suicides in India, an organic farmer appeals to the father of the Green Revolution to
embrace organic agriculture. Sam Burcher
UN slams India for farmer suicides
India has enough food to feed her population of one billion, yet hunger and food insecurity at household level increased
at the end of the 20th century. A new UN report casts doubt on the government’s claim that poverty declined from 36 to
26 percent between 1993-2000 [1]. It criticizes the shift to cash crops that reduced the cultivation of grains, pulses
and millets for household consumption. The report slams the rise of farmer suicides in India and links them to the
unremitting growth of a market economy that does not benefit all Indians equally.
Impassioned plea to India’s government
Bhaskar Save is an 84-year-old farmer from Gujarat who has petitioned the Indian Government to save India’s farmers from
exploitation and worse. In an open letter to Prof M.S. Swaminathan (chairperson of the National Commission on Farmers in
the Ministry of Agriculture) he puts the blame squarely on his shoulders as the ‘father’ of the ‘Green Revolution’ that
has destroyed India’s natural abundance, farming communities, and soil [2]. He writes: “Where there is a lack of
knowledge, ignorance masquerades as science! Such is the ‘science’ you have espoused, leading our farmers astray – down
the pits of misery.”
Read the rest of this article here http://www.i-sis.org.uk/farmersuicides.php
Or read other articles in the Science and Food section of the Institute of Science in Society Website http://www.i-sis.org.uk/scifood.php
ENDS