‘Farming is not a business, it is a way of life and culture for farmers’
‘We want to create a system where farmers are empowered to not only satisfy their own hunger, but also be able to satisfy the hunger of the whole world.’
Farmers across the country have been committing suicides primarily because the returns from the harvest are lower than their investment. Changing climatic conditions, poor farming practices, lack of irrigation facilities, etc. are many reasons for failure of crops. In the last twenty years, nearly 300,000 farmers have ended their lives by ingesting pesticides or hanging themselves. Maharashtra, with 60,000 farmer suicides is at the top of the list. Farmers who resorted to chemical-based farming (GMO’s) base their farming on single crops, and when the harvest is low, they face a future of immense debt, which drives them to commit suicide.
Traditional farming methods have disappeared in the long-term mission to ‘develop’ farming, because of which farmers are unable to fulfil their basic need for food, before meeting the demands of the market. Farming practices like Baranaja, which is the practice of growing twelve or more crops in a synergistic combination is one of the solutions for meeting grain targets and feeding farmer’s families, and has succeeded in areas like Uttarakhand.
