Environmental issues have taken a backseat for way too long. Even under this administration – which promised to create jobs through new and clean energy initiatives, and rejoin the international community to reduce worldwide carbon emissions – environmental issues have taken a backseat to health care overhaul and reviving our frail economy.
Crisis
We should be especially concerned because the consequences of misusing resources are all too clear in the near-crisis state that Punjab’s ecology is currently in. Those who still have relatives in Punjab know that this past summer, electricity outages were a daily occurrence and lasted 8 hours at a time – the worst in many years. These shortages in electricity occur because the government subsidizes electricity for farmers so that it’s free or nearly so and they can pump water for irrigation to their heart’s content. However, this leads to electricity shortages, overuse of waterpumps, and water wastage. [Forbes-India]
An article in Forbes-India asked yesterday, “Is India running out of water?” For Punjab, the answer is yes.
And Punjab, as the breadbasket of the most populous nation in the world, may be an indicator of other similarly situated agricultural communities.
While I do value the role films play in telling stories, I wonder if at times it can do more harm than good. I recently heard about a new bollywood movie called Kisaan and had the opportunity to watch it last night. I had been told the movie was about farmer suicides in punjab and while i was aware it was a bollywood production, I definitely made time to watch it as it is such an important issue.
The movie touched upon issues such as the role illiteracy and dowry play in the lives of farmers – the reality of poverty overpowered by the hope of prosperity. These are important issues and should be discussed. Films are an important tool to utilize in order to raise awareness about such issues.
Suffice it to say, Kisaan is a bollywood production and is distracted by it’s commitment to bollywood requirements. I can’t say i wasn’t disappointed - this is such an important issue which needs to be explored. While i commend the director for attempting to raise the issue, i do question if this genre of film was the best vehicle for it. The issue was so entangled in the film, mixed in with songs and awkward jokes, that i can’t imagine how serious the issue will be taken.
Here at TLH we’ve have lengthy discussions about the potential commodification of religious symbols and also about problematic media representation of groups of people. So, I thought that the recent hoopla over the questionable photo shoot in the August issue of Vogue India would be a colorful addition to those discussions. The New York Times reported that,
Vogue India’s August issue presented a 16-page vision of supple handbags, bejeweled clutches and status-symbol umbrellas, modeled not by runway stars or the wealthiest fraction of Indian society who can actually afford these accessories, but by average Indian people. [link]
In one picture, a older poor woman holds a small child wearing a Fendi bib (cost = $100), in another pose a family preparing for their daily commute, sits on a motorbike with the mother riding the traditional sidesaddle way… oh and with her Hermès Birkin bag (cost = $10,000) on her wrist. Then of course, there is the turbaned man who models a Burberry umbrella (cost = $200). The photo spread itself is definitely striking. However, knowing that many Indians live on less than a dollar a day is even more striking when put in context with these exorbitant goods. The debate has raised questions from both sides of the table. Those that believe the photo shoot was distateful and that it exploits the poor by using them as props. Then there are others who believe this juxtaposition of wealth against poverty is a reality in India and exactly what people need to see.
A little while ago, we mentioned a census commissioned by the Punjab government and being conducted by the Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana, documenting the rates of farmer suicides in Punjab.
An interesting development is an independent study conducted by a group called the “Movement Against State Repression,” a Chandigarh based non-profit organization which seems to be working with patwaris in Sangrur.
Inderjit Singh Jaijee, convenor of the Movement Against State Repression (MASR), has said patwaris in Sangrur district have collected information with regard to the cases of suicide by farmers. [link]
This is a positive development because the findings of the PAU can now be measured against the findings of MASR, at least in Sangrur, to ensure the truth of the figures. This is especially important because PAU is known to heavily push farmers to use pesticides which are harmful to the land, the farmers, and one factor of the recent agricultural decline of Punjab.
The Punjab government has finally allocated funds to assess the breadth of farmer suicides in the state.
The Punjab Government seems to have finally woken up to the need of having a census on farmers’ suicides in the state. The state government, it is learnt, has the [sic] entrusted the arduous task of completing the census to the Punjab Agricultural University. As per Dr R.S. Sidhu, head of the Department of Economics, PAU, “The state government has asked us to do the work and we have taken it up as a research project. Though whole of Punjab is to be covered under the study, the state government has asked us to do a pilot project in two districts of Punjab, Gurdaspur and Sangrur initially.
The census will be conducted by the Punjab Agricultural University (PAU), based in Patiala Ludhiana. During the first phase of the survey, PAU will conduct a door to door survey in about 1,500 villages in Gurdaspur and about 575 villages in Sangrur out of the 12,000 villages in Punjab. The report from this initial phase is set to be completed in four months from the beginning of the survey, which is set to begin in the next couple of weeks.
The census will take into account farmer suicides occurring after April 1, 2005, excluding suicides of farm laborers.
Rising pesticide and fertiliser costs, shrinking land holdings, declining soil fertility and heavily-subsidized farming in wealthier countries are some of the factors blamed for these suicides.
In keeping with TLH’s agricultural theme, the BBC reported today on the environmental health fallout of the Green Revolution in Punjab (I). The Green Revolution introduced industrial mono-culture farming to small farms. The result was a short and sharp growth in grain production. However, over time this has also resulted in declining harvests. Why? Because many of the “best practices” from industrial farming are also unsustainable. Without crop rotation, most stock grains (corn, soy, wheat, rice, and cotton) leach nutrients from the soil. The industrial solution to this is an over-reliance on both manufactured fertilizer (to re-fix nitrogen) and pesticides (since mono-crops are notoriously more vulnerable to weather or pest devastation). Now declining crops are paired with another negative outgrowth from devastatingly unnatural farming practice: increasing rates of cancer, and possibly pesticide poisoning, among Punjabi farmers.
In agricultural economics, public health, and agrarian studies, the links between pesticide use and health have been clearly documented in the local and international context (1, 2, 3, 4). We know, now, that many of these methods do not post the high crop levels that seemed never-ending in the past. And in the context of — arguably trade-driven — food shortages world-wide, this article raises questions about the disproportionate burden of agrarian “success.” Is it truly successful if it’s unsustainable? Is it “success” if grower booms later severely limit the quality or duration of life? How about the permanent ecological damage? The loss of biodiversity? Punjab has fed the subcontinent for decades, but what will happen if growth continues to fail while the population surges?
Previous coverage: “Nanak Kheti”… and Natural Farming, The Rights of Punjabi Farmworkers, Asian Americans and Rural Development, Farmer suicides continue…
Guru Nanak Dev Ji is admired and well-known for his travels, for example, across South Asia and the 
Even though I have always had great admiration for his travels and their significance, I always wished people would also give more focus to how he lived his life as farmer after he gave-up his Gurdadhi. As we know, Sikhi is a way of life … so as a Sikh … how did he farm … why did he farm … what significance did it have for him as a Sikh?
Interestingly, there is a growing group of small farmers in
“There is a silent and constructive revolution happening in
Punjab to save the environment, regenerate ecological resources bring back soil productivity and re-establish ecological balance in the farms. This is the natural farming movement of Kheti Virasat Mission (KVM), a civil society action group headquartered in the Jaitu town ofFaridkot district. The movement is led by experienced farmers who believe in Guru Nanak’s tenet of Sarbat da bhala (well being of all),” says Amarjeet Sharma, a farmer from Chaina village, district Faridkot who heads the village level Vatavaran Panchayat.”
Along with the concept of “Sarbat Da Bhala”, KMV asks common farmers
“ … to adopt the famous verse [by Guru Nanak Dev Ji], Pavnu Guru, Panni Pita Matta Dharat Mahat (air is guru, water is father and the earth is mother)”.
A couple of years ago, in the farmer suicide capital of
As people from 10 villages spoke of how their families had witnessed double, even triple, suicides in a year, everyone knew of the havoc debt and unsustainable agricultural practice had wreaked on farmers in the state.
So they spoke fearlessly, revealing shocking details. National Samples Organisation data shows “whereas the average annual loan taken by farmers in
India is Rs 13,000, the corresponding figure forPunjab is Rs 40,000.” It also shows that around 40 per cent Indian farmers want to quit farming due to the cost it involves.
Why are farmers in such debt? Agriculture is no longer the profitable livelihood it once was, yet many do not have the skills or education to turn to other forms of livelihood.
