so more than 15,000 people have
committed suicide in last four years in
March well let me ask you one question
what do you think what should be the
equation between the number of former
suicide and lacking rainfall should it
be proportional yeah let me show you
something
so this is the number of Hamas suicide
and this is the lacking potential
absolutely no correlation right so when
I started this film working on this film
mark Farah was a big paradox for me let
me try to explain this to you now most
of the Indian farmers most of the
Indians stay in villages and among them
70 percent of these rural people they
are totally dependent on agriculture
that means they're dependent on ground
water and rain water and more than 80
percent of these people they owe a land
which is less than 2 acres now imagine
you to be that farmer ok sitting in this
room we have a land exactly half of the
size of this room and you have 5 members
in your family to feed ground water is
out of question and there is no rain
year after year what will you do
would you commit suicide or you migrate
you'll mind rate rate so more than a
lakh people migrated from Marathwada to
nearby cities every year when it rains
they come back it's a huge economic
shift when we visited there we saw only
few old people starving most of them
living in a hope that one day to drain
and their son and daughter will come
back
so yes migration is a very important
point to understand that paradox
now is it's a direct effect that if
there is draught people will migrate
right but what happens to the people who
were still living there who left there
or who are struggling there so actually
doesn't matter if there is rain or not
Muraki para is in the middle part of
India and which is basically known as a
draught from predominately a draught
from an area it has a laterite soil
which can't hold the water and it leader
nor have the fertility and thanks to the
whimsical tea of the climate we don't
have a proper distribution of rainfall
nowadays all we have is flash rain and
to capture those flash strain we need a
proper water management we don't agree
which you don't have so acute scarcity
of water and the soil is of no use
so people have shifted from food crops
to the cash crops the cash crops are
mostly talking about sugar cane and
cotton now Suba cane which leads gallons
of water the government of india have
come out with a program called D PAP
draught prone area program in 1973 so it
says that the areas which are mostly
affected by draught will gain a lump sum
amount of government grant okay now I'll
be quoting Mr P Sai Nath from his book a
really interesting thing he digged out
that almost 73 percent of the sugarcane
produced in Maharashtra has been done in
these D PAP blocks I'm talking about
sugar cane which leaves gallons of water
Lonavala having 1,600 to 2,000
millimetres of rainfall also falls under
this D PAP blocks along with Murat vara
which has 500 to 600 millimetre of
rainfall now the average rainfall in
India is thousand millimeter per year
now I think the sewer
thing kind of understood now I'll be
talking about the cotton thing in 2002
Indian farmers are introduced to a
smartly developed genetically modified
cotton or bt cotton the idea was the
farmers were told it would get better
yield
although the seeds are very expensive it
is genetically modified but it is immune
to pests now over the years the farmers
have realized that that seeds are so
intelligently designed that it loses
their viability after one year that
means it loses its germination power
after one year that leaves the farmer
has to buy new sets of seeds every year
unlike the desi Indian traditional
cotton seeds so the cost of the
production is getting higher
now the cotton ball worms the pests okay
they have a life cycle of 30 days that
means in one year it has 12 life cycles
now what does that mean it means that
they're adaptable to natural nature more
than us and now if you go to any bt
cotton field you will see that tons of
pesticides are being used in these
fields again cost of the production is
getting higher okay
now I'll be talking about the
fertilizers so to get more yield people
use fertilizers in the soil and the soil
has primarily Mike macronutrients and
micronutrients when I contribute to our
fertilizer in the soil will contribute
majorly the nitrogen phosphorus and
potassium nor the micronutrients so year
after year if we culture a single crop
in a particular land will be
contributing to the will the amount of
micronutrients will go down and it will
affect the yield and to balance it the
farmers use more and more fertilizers
every year now
the they have to buy new sets of seeds
every year there they have to use
pesticides and they have to be are using
fertilizers because they don't have the
proper knowledge to treat the soil to
retain the magma micronutrients so it's
a totally wrong method of farming and it
is happening because there's a lack of
education which is again a very
important point to understand the
paradox now who in the former grow
something in the land they come to the
market I do they don't get the expected
price so it's our failure the Government
of India has to acknowledge that it's
their failure to intervene between the
matters between the factory owners and
the farmers to give the farmers the
justifiable price whatever the
government schemes like thousand
thousand five hundred rupees per hectare
per year is it sufficient what do you
think it is sufficient no according to
the former they told in my film that the
other schemes because they're not aware
of they're not informative they are not
smart enough those schemes goes to the
big landowners or the people who are
close to the politicians and at the end
of the day they falls in the trap of the
private loan givers and their compound
interest lose their lands and eventually
embrace death of a life so failure of
government policies is a very important
point to understand the farmer suicide
why it is happening now government of
Maharashtra banned the bt cotton in 2012
to promote this Indian cotton seeds but
they removed the ban in 2013 for some
reason and now it is a hugely practiced
in Maharashtra in fact Maharashtra leads
lists the top in cotton farming cotton
growing a new thing has come in the
market is called htv-2 corn or herbicide
tolerant bt cotton
it is basically a package you have to
buy the HT BT seed and herbicide called
roundup so the herbicide is used to kill
the unnecessary weeds which will compete
with your crop in the farm now this
herbicide has a chemical component
called glyphosate which is basically
known to be poison a prolonged use of
glyphosate is basically you'll be
injecting poison in a food chain it is
also believed to be carcinogenic there
are several cases reported in u.s. and
scientists have also believed that these
the prolonged use of this glyphosate can
develop a super weed which can be
catastrophic so Indian government and
like other European countries have
banned it banned the use of this HT bt
cotton
ID only is half of the indian farmers
are pleading to the government that
please remove the ban if you go several
places in Maharashtra it is hugely
practiced nowadays how to explain this
situation it's a totally wrong choice of
crops wrong choice of crops leading to a
massacre now if we sum up to understand
that paradox if you go back to that you
know unco relation these are the
necessary point hi which I understood
this is a migration lack of education
failure of government policies and wrong
crop selection no isn't there any
solution or alternative yes there are
alternatives if you go to us you will
find that half of the sugar is being
produced form sugar beets not from
sugarcane and super beet needs exactly
half of the amount of water people in
buggle code district in Maharashtra
they are shifted from super came to in a
soybean and - why why not food crops why
on the cash crops scientists activists
like Doubleday dr. table there he is
practicing 10 to 12 different
type of price which are believed to be
drought tolerant according to him more
than 5,000 farmers at a present day
they're practicing it including
Maharashtrian farmers these are the
stories we need to spread let's talk
about a case study these these are two
villages here a buzzer and analogously
these are like 100 kilometer away from
murat vara like it also have similar
kind of rainfall but these are the
villages they have are self-sufficient
villages they don't care about
government fund they don't care care
about rainfall they are self-sufficient
model because they were United if when I
visited there I saw that they have
artificial lakes they have cultivation
they have plantation they have solar
power they have natural gas biogas from
community toilet they have seed banks
they have cooperatives they have
education they have multiple schools
they were successful because they were
United
and they believed in the fact that if
will contribute to the village welfare
together in the long run in like in 10
or 15 years the good day will come and
it will come for sure and it was easier
for them to believe because they had
great influencers and leaders like Anna
Hazare a or popper trap our now leaders
like them are rare ok but it is always
easier to believe when you have the
power of knowledge and education I think
when you have a language based education
in different parts of India why can't we
include a few pages of information about
this oil treatment or how to retain this
micronutrients or about organic farming
in our school books in this particular
areas see blaming the government won't
work anymore we have to move on the only
solution lies in the unity and the
unities and believing yourself that is
only possible when you believe in
yourselves in the community
and the believe will come when you have
the power of knowledge and education and
awareness to a bright direction thank
you
[Applause]