We must realize before it is too late.
I have been watching, hearing and feeling the realization of how different is spending money for us and for the rural farmers. The sum of rupees we spent on eating, shopping is on a par to a life of a farmer worth thinking about!
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Sunday, February 25, 2007 (Nalgonda):
From June last year, over 600 farmers have killed themselves in Andhra Pradesh alone.In fact, ever since the UPA came to power an estimated 8,500 farmers have committed suicide in the country, indicating a serious crisis of hope and confidence.
Around six weeks ago cotton farmer Ranga Reddy from Ramulabanda village in Nalgonda district committed suicide.
"For his sons' education, he took loans. Despite all problems, he was keen to make them study. He would say they are boys, my life is gone at least my sons' should live well," said Sunanda, Ranga Reddy's mother.
Ranga Reddy was a proud father and the day he committed suicide his children had been sent back from school for not paying their fees.
His sons, Kiran and Yadagiri, were also not permitted to sit for the half-yearly exams.
It appears that an embarrassed father - who had just spent all the money he could raise to dig a borewell, which yielded no water - perhaps decided he could take it no more.
Inheritance of loss
"I have to pay up to Rs 2000 as annual fee. I don't know how I will pay it. They will not let us write the exam," said Kiran, Class X student.
What this situation has become for this generation next in the agriculture community is an inheritance of loss.
On the day that Ranga Reddy committed suicide in Nalgonda district, in the neighbouring district of Medak, a 21-year-old man drank pesticide and ended his life.
He took this decision because his farmer father had left each of his three sons with a debt of Rs 1.2 lakh rupees.
It is no wonder that one hardly finds any farmer who will say that he wants his son to take up agriculture, which is something that the entire country needs to worry about.
