This is a highly disturbing article with ominous implications.

In 2003, 17,707 farmers committed suicide - the cause? Corporate agribusinesses like Monsanto.

On the surface, the massive numbers of farmer suicides lack the social unity and revolutionary opposition other revolutions employ. In fact, the local Indian government refuses to address the correlation between agrarian suicides and economic exploitation, making it difficult for the international public to apply real social forces to these farmers’ actions. However, research shows the massive numbers of farmer suicides are linked not only with economic disparity, but with corporate exploitation by multinational agribusinesses.

The Republic of India is one of the top twelve nations in the world in terms of biodiversity. Featuring nearly 8% of all recorded species on Earth, this subcontinent is home to 47,000 plant species and 81,000 animal species. Simultaneously, India is home to the largest network of indigenous farmers in the world. Yet biotechnology has led to extreme environmental degradation in the region, threatening to replace its diverse ecology with corporate hybrid monoculture.

There are three potential causes for the onset of these self-inflicted massacres: 1) exploitation by multinational agribusinesses 2) severe economic disparity and 3) a means of resistance by exposing the abuse of the agrarian sphere. In 1998, around the inception of mass farmer suicides, the World Bank imposed regulations that opened up India’s seed market to corporate multinationals like Monsanto. Non-renewable GM crops now replaced a self-sustainable farming system that had been perfected over thousands of years. India’s Agrarian Martyrs: Are You Listening?

Desperate people do desperate things. “Dr. R. Raghuarami, an Indian psychologist, argues that many of the farmers are taking their lives with direct intent of addressing attention to the agrarian struggle.” And it’s no wonder, with interest rates as high a 50%, the farmers are at an extreme economic disadvantage with non-Indian farmers.

In fact, non Indian farmers receive six times the amount of GDP that Indian farmers get, requiring an exorbitant amount of loans to be taken out. While 90% of farm loans come from money lenders, they are charged anywhere from 36-50% interest, placing them in a cyclical mode of poverty.

The cause of all this suffering? Corporate agribusiness and biotechnology, which is having life-threatening and devastating impacts in India:

Yet biotechnology has led to extreme environmental degradation in the region, threatening to replace its diverse ecology with corporate hybrid monoculture. The original Green Revolution was supposed to save 58 million Indian hectares. Today, 120 million of the 142 million cultivable hectares is degraded- over twice the magnitude that the Green Revolution attempted to save! In the Indian state of Punjab, 84 of the 138 developmental blocks are recorded as having 98% ground water exploitation. The critical limit is 80%. The result has had devastating impacts on the agricultural community, leaving exploited farmers with little choice of action.

This is the first I heard of their plight, but not the first time nor the last time that Monsanto and other agribusiness like Archer-Daniels have made the news.  These multinationals are creating and promoting death for the entire world with their non-renewable crops and massive monoculture farms.