Indebtedness was listed as the primary reason for 55% of farmer suicides in 2015 and more than 300,000 Indian farmers have committed suicide
The failing economics of such farms–agricultural households are most indebted–are increased by additional loans that families take to meet HEALTH issues, leaving them with diminished ability to invest in farming.
However, indebtedness is a symptom and not the root cause of India’s farm crisis.
#Agricultural indebtedness of an average farm household borrowing has been “excessive and the blame lies on factors like #Stagnation in agriculture, Decreasing production and Marketing risks, Institutional vacuum and lack of alternative livelihood opportunities”.
Nearly 70% of India’s 90 million #agricultural households spend more than they earn on average each month, pushing them towards debt, which is now the primary reason in more than half of all suicides by farmers nationwide.
The failing economics of such farms–agricultural households are most indebted–are highlighted by additional loans that families take to meet health issues, leaving them with diminish
ed ability to invest in farming.
Outstanding loans for health reasons doubled over a decade to 2012, and loans for farm business fell by about half over the same period.
The onset of the Green Revolution, the usage of chemical fertilizers and pesticides increased exponentially along with genetically modified crops. This kind of farming also increased the costs. Chemical inputs and modified crops also deplete the quality of the soil and ruin its ecological balance. The only option left was to invest in more and more chemical fertilizers and higher and higher yielding varieties of crops. All this has resulted in a scenario where the expenses of farming have steadily increased whereas the incomes have declined. This led to increased borrowing and ultimately led to suicides.”
Mitti Back to the roots
Mitti Back to the roots is a 90minutes fictional film on agrarian crisis and farmer suicides in India. It covers 25 major issues from drought to pricing policies which are responsible for these crisis.
While Mitti‘s journey has enriched Anshul the writer and Director as an individual, the path towards its theatrical release was far from smooth. Anshul says they were not given a chance by any leading production house to host a meeting with distributors. “Many said that spectators in the city aren’t concerned about agrarian issues. We were even ready to screen the film to them and had requested them to decide on a release later.” These experiences only have strengthened Anshul’s resolve to take the film to the masses; he has also come up with a unique music video that summarises the film’s intent.
Anshul, had been shooting his 41 films by the day while balancing his IT job in night-shifts, for which he has received 104 Awards at various film festivals in India and Internationally for his films like Gateway to Heaven got 3 theatrical release in England, Italy, Venezuela and in August 2017 GTH will be screened in Aventura, 24 theatre in Miami
The prize money was pumped in for his future projects. In pursuit of his goal, he had dedicated the next two years (after 2015) of his life to make Mitti, a crowd-funded Hindi feature film that discusses 25 major issues surrounding the agrarian crisis, farmer suicides and solutions that could pave the way forward.
His work began with a stint at the Centre for Sustainable Agriculture, Hyderabad mentored by agricultural scientist G V Ramanjaneyulu.“We wanted to talk about issues that concerned the entire country, our research began from the data we’d gathered from states like Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Punjab and Maharashtra. I’d witnessed the Kisan Sammelan, learnt about agricultural practices practically.”
He is Hoping for a release in due course. Mitti is also expected to make a splash at multiple film fests. G V Ramanjaneylu and Anshul will also be collaborating on another film in this series.
What distinguishes Mitti from mainstream films is their singular focus on agrarian issues without making it appear simplistic. One of the solutions the 120-minute long film suggests and that helped the village Dorli come out of its financial crunch has been the multi-cropping initiative. Anshul says with a focus on inspiring the common man to give back to his society, they simplified the technical jargon associated with agriculture. “I had hosted acting workshops in the city, hand-picked actors from the Hyderabad theatre fraternity, while setting up the film in Enabavi (known as the country’s first organic village).”
As Anshul says “ It was our complete 1 year of hard work and after 3 months running behind the production houses we decided to start crowd funding. The main aim of our film is to SAVE FARMERS LIFE.
It may be sound crazy “that how a life can be saved with the help of films” but we are not going on the base of assumption we have practically proved it with our previous films.
IF WE CAN SAVE AT LEAST 1 LIFE OF A FARMER WITH THE HELP OF THIS FILM THEN THAT WILL BE EQUAL TO 100 CRORE TO US.
This article is an appeal to the people to support such films.
They will be doing free road shows of this film in the areas where major farmer suicides have happened since they don’t have producers and distributors to take this film to the audience
Synopsis: A young agricultural scientist who saves a village from being sold.
On realizing problems with the current model of
agriculture research, regulation and practice and the way farming is
pushed into crisis and food production and consumption gets into a vicious poisonous cycle. Further, she explores ways to find solutions in working with farmers for
the agrarian crisis and farmer suicide happening in our country.
Objective: This project is a result of one year of research on the reasons behind the suicides of the farmers in our country. The research was done by a team headed by Mr. Anshul Sinha under the mentor ship of Center for Sustainable Agriculture, Hyderabad founded by Dr. G V Ramanjaneyulu.
The project portrays 25 major issues of agrarian crisis which are the main reasons behind 3 lakhs farmer suicides happened in our nation.
The vision of the film is to do free screenings in the places where major farmer suicides have happened, after film screening Agriculutre scientist will be having conversation with farmers
They need support of audience to reach this film in all the villages of this country
The film aims at saving every farmer from giving up farming & their life.
#Indebtedness, #Agricultural indebtedness, #Stagnation, #agricultural, #loans, #Suicides,# HEALTH, #farmers
