No let up in India farm suicides

Took this picture in West Bengal and tried to capture the back breaking work of Land less labours. These days also the small farms hire these labours of a day to day basis and let them carry out their work sometimes with bare hand.

kuntal41101 has contributed a photo to this story.

Kerala had never been self sufficient in agriculture. ITs just because theweather is so unpredictable that the business has never been promising on a longer run.. and those farmers have been rejecting any proposals as such..

challiyan has contributed a photo to this story.

Thanks for Sharing Sanjay.

Thanks Shweta, Regds

This woman's husband killed himself by drinking weedkiller in 2005, she lost her land and livelihood and now works as a day labourer for less than 50 cents a day. She has two children to support.

Jonathan Elliott has contributed a photo to this story.

Hi, Jonathan Elliott here, glad you got in touch about my photos on Flickr, I have more if you're interested. My email and details are at elliottmedia.net you can email me direct at jonathan@elliottmedia.net, thanks, Jonathan

Great story, Sanjay!  Maybe that's not the right word for it.  The farmers I know in Sri Lanka are often tempted to sell some of their miniscule landholdings to pay off the creditors, but that only makes things worse in the future.

Increasing yields with less water.

These women in Tamil Nadu state in South India are participating in a pilot project by the state government to increase yields of paddy (rice) but requiring up to 40% less water. The seedlings are planted singly, not in bunches, an exact distance apart (see the woman with the measuring string). The plants have greater room to grow and the even rows allow weeding with a $3 mechanical rotary hoe which churns the weeds into a free fertilizer. See http://iamwarm.org/noteiamwarm.htm for further information.

Michael Foley Photography has contributed a photo to this story.

farmers in india, i imagine, just like all other impoverished groups, have no access or little access to organised credit systems and the only option at their disposal is of approaching professional moneylenders who charge very high interest rates. anyhow, in this chance encounter with some farmers in jodhpur when i was visiting there (i am uploading their picture) they seemed to be quite prosperous, as was apparent from their shopping spree. in pakistan we still suffer the fuedal system which was done away in india 60 years ago.

A farmer sprays pesticides in a paddy field in India.

Rajib Singha has contributed a photo to this story.

Vidarbha remains a grim statistic. One suicide in every eight hours. More than half of those who committed suicide were between 20 and 45, their most productive years. The Maharashtra government says as many as 1920 farmers committed suicide between January 1, 2001 and August 19, 2006. Nearly 2.8 million of the 3.2 million cotton farmers are defaulters, reports Jaideep Hardikar

pankaj trivedi has contributed a photo to this story.

I was not at all aware of this situation when I recently visited India, and find it very sad that the numbers continue to rise despite the government's aid.

Karianne_Rygh has contributed a photo to this story.

This photo was taken in Hampi in January as the farmers planted the rice. What marked me it's that there were almost only women in fields.

Anne Gaëlle Rico has contributed a photo to this story.