Farmer Woes-I

Apart from the well known fact that more than 100,000 farmers have died in India in the past decade alone, did you know that the..

1. Per capita income for a farmer from Paddy is ~Rs30,000/- per crop?
2. Cost of capital for a farmer varies anything from 24-75% per annum?
3. While the cost of drilling a bore is Rs40,000-50,000/-, the cost of installation of a motor and getting access for power to that motor costs another Rs1-1.5 lacs?
4. If a person has less than one acre of land holding, he cannot even drill a bore?
5. Much of the farming society doesn't own any farming land?
6. Caste drives the farming activities in India?
7. The debt write offs mentioned by Govt. impact only 10-15% of the total farming community?
8. In spite of the wide-spread un-employment there is a dearth of labour available to a farmer?
9. Farming as an activity has the highest attrition rates?
10. Minimum support price offered to the farmers doesn't include the travel costs, and those costs are to be borne by the farmer himself?
11. Many farmers stick around to farming, more because of society pressures than economics?

In order to understand the above and the other factors affecting farming community I travelled to coastal Andhra pradesh. The region is considered to be one of the highest paddy producing areas in India. But this year 70% of the total farm output got washed away due to the un-seasonal rains which lead to death of lot of farmers. 

The details of the trip are going to be mentioned as a series of articles beginning from this one...