Exploitation has driven 180,000 Indian farmers to suicide
London, 8 July 2009

According to an investigation by MPC Associates, a UK retail and leisure consultancy practice, nearly 180,000 Indian farmers have committed suicide in the past decade as a result of exploitation by British and American consumers. MPC’s research shows that the UK is importing from India £357million of food per annum at exceptionally low prices which Indian farmers have been forced to put up with in an attempt to discharge their debts to moneylenders.

These debts have resulted from global seed corporations’ sales to Indian farmers of expensive hybrid and genetically modified, imported seeds which have failed to meet the harvest forecasts of these corporations. In turn this has led to the phenomenal suicide rates of Indian farmers (182,936 between the years1997and 2007 and still running at the same rate).

Figures from HM Revenue & Customs (Customs and International Trade Statistics) show that from January to December 2008 the total value of fruit imported from India amounted to £32 million. 40% of all fruit imported from India was for fresh grapes (value £12.8 million, quantity 13.2 million kg). The average import value of these grapes was 96p per kg. Grapes sold in UK supermarkets have often been selling at 3 to 4 times this amount.

Peter Wynne-James, Managing Director of MPC Associates stated that it was now time for British supermarket groups to declare the profits they are making on food imported from India and if they be excessive these profits should be returned for the benefit of Indian farmers. This would require a revised protocol from the Greater London Authority (GLA) to prevent labour exploitation of food which is imported from India and other countries to the UK.

MPC Associates are currently talking to Indian Government sources about setting up Indian Farmers supermarkets where Indian farm produce is sold directly to the Indian public. These would be fully fledged supermarkets adapted to Indian custom.

Indian Farmer Suicide Rates

Indian Farmer Suicide rates are collated by the National Civic Records Business – NCRB in India. The suicide rates between the years 1997 – 2007 in the main fruit growing states of Maharashtra, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Chattisgarh are recorded as two-thirds of India’s total 182,936 farmers’ suicides despite this areas population accounting for only one-third of India’s total population. (The suicide figures exclude the widows of farmers, who have also committed suicide, as female suicides are not recorded).

According to the Tata Institution of Social Services 1998–2008 as many as 150,000 farmers have committed suicide in the past decade after falling behind in payments to local money lenders.

The National Sample Survey of India reported that, between 2007 and 2008, 70,000 Indian farmers committed suicide mainly due to poverty and debt. (These show an even higher rate per annum than the previous 10 years)

In some cases Indian farmers sell one of their kidneys in an attempt to pay off their debts.

A study by the Government of Maharastra also found that almost 6 in 10 of those farmers who kill themselves had debts between $110 and $550.

The Reason for Indian Farmers Suicides

India is the biggest exporter of food in the world second to the USA.

In the past Indian farmers have produced their own seeds from crops the year before so that they can be replanted the following year at no extra cost to the farmer. Large seed corporations began by offering Indian farmers hybrids (which cannot be saved) and then moved to genetically modified (GM) seeds which are non-renewable and now have to be purchased by Indian farmers every year, along with pesticides and fertilizers.

The prices now suffered by farmers are £10 for 100 grams of genetically modified seed. The price for traditional seeds which Indian farmers have used in the past was 1p per 100 grams (1000 times less). In the past when crops had failed, Indian farmers were able to replant their own seeds the following year without any outside costs.

In 2002 when the global seed corporations initially sold their own patented seeds to Indian farmers they promised record harvests. The harvests failed and Indian farmers subsequently lost 1 billion rupees (£12.45 million) due to crop failure. Instead of producing 1,500 kg per acre as promised, the harvest was as low as 200 kg per acre. Instead of an increased income of 10,000 Rupees (£127) per acre, Indian farmers faced losses of 6,400 Rupees (£81) per acre.

Genetic modification of seeds promoted by global seed corporations have encouraged farmers to move from food crop (rice, wheat, maize and pulses) to cash crop (cotton, coffee, sugar cane, groundnut, peppers and vanilla). For millions of farmers this has meant higher cultivation costs, far larger loans, higher debt and being locked into the instability of global prices. It used to cost farmers $165 to grow an acre of paddy (cotton) in Kerala. When many farmers were encouraged to make the move to global seed corporations the cost per acre of paddy was $3000 per acre.

An Indian farmer today is now a consumer of costly seeds and costly chemicals sold by powerful landlords and backed by local money lenders. The farmer is forced to take out loans at higher interest rates Many small farms do not qualify for bank credit forcing the farmer to turn to money lenders who charge up to 20% interest on a 4 month loan.

In parts of India which are rain fed the subsidies given on fertilizers, pesticides, irrigation and electricity do not apply to the small marginal farmer and medium sized landowner. Being the cultivator, the farmer is deprived of an assured irrigation source. Thus those who are cultivating cash crops (cotton, coffee, sugar cane, groundnut, peppers and vanilla) that require irrigation water have to rely on rainfall. This puts the system under tremendous stress. The cash crop becomes a kind of compulsion as subsistence farming alone does not provide capital that cultivators need for survival. More and more the small and marginal farmers are pushed into cash crop cultivation thereby generating debts.