Drought, loss of water rights, and debt are among the factors causing farmers in India's Maharashtra state to commit suicide.
"Sachin Ingale slipped out of his family’s two-room, white-painted mud hut about 4 p.m. and walked into their farm field where the 22-year-old took a deep swig of pesticide from a plastic bottle. He died later that evening.
Four months later, the mercury is pushing 50 degrees Celsius (122 degrees Fahrenheit) in his village in India’s Maharashtra state. Inside the family hut, a picture of a serene Buddha decorates a wall above a cracked concrete floor.
Elder brother Satish Ingale is sitting on a plastic chair in a white singlet as he explains the pesticide killed Sachin, but it’s the loss of water rights to heavy industry, the worst drought in four decades and the rise in debt that follows that’s causing farmers to take their own lives."
Rakteem Katakey, Rajesh Kumar Singh, and Archana Chaudhary report for Bloomberg May 22, 2013.
SEE ALSO:
"Indian Farmers and Suicide: How Big Is the Problem?" (BBC News)
"The Myth of India’S ‘GM Genocide’: Genetically Modified Cotton Blamed for Wave of Farmer Suicides" (National Post)
"India Losing 2,000 Farmers Every Single Day: A Tale Of A Rapidly Changing Society" (International Business Times)
"Debt-Ridden Farmer Commits Suicide" (Times of India/TNN)
"Farmer Commits Suicide For ‘Crop Failure’" (Indian Express)
"Demolishing the Myth That Monsanto's Engineered Crops Drove 270,000 Indian Farmers To Suicide" (Knight Science Journalism Tracker)
"Seeds Of Suicide and Slavery Versus Seeds of Life and Freedom" (Aljazeera)
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