Question.
What are the implications of severe indebtedness? Do you feel that the recent incidents of farmers’ suicides in different states of the country are the result of indebtedness?
(NCERT class 12 geography, India People and Economy, Chapter-5. Land Resources and Agriculture)
Answer.
After the Green Revolution, in modern agriculture, agricultural inputs (seeds, fertilizers, pesticides) have become very expensive. Most of the marginal and small farmers take loans from institutions or moneylenders at very high-interest rates to buy these costly inputs. Crop failure or low returns from agriculture have forced the farmer into severe indebtedness.
The following are the serious consequences of excessive indebtedness:
- Severe indebtedness generates despair, mental imbalance, and depression among poor farmers as they are neither able to repay the loan nor able to improve their socioeconomic status. Due to this the suicide rate among farmers is increasing.
- The heavy burden of loans reduces the savings of the farmers so they are not able to invest in increasing agricultural productivity.
- Due to low agricultural productivity, the farmers are again motivated to take loans from moneylenders, and because of this, the farmer gets trapped in the vicious cycle of poverty.
- Apart from the low socio-economic status of farmers, depression, and farmer suicides, it also hampers agricultural productivity and the rural economy in a very bad way. As a result, it promotes rural-urban migration.
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