Why India's Farm System Is Failing 

Good report but You did not mentioned(or deliberately missed) an important point. “ WTO and USA putting pressure on Government of India to reduce or abolish MSP and Subsidies, given to Indian farmers “. As under WTO laws it comes under trade distorting practices. Would love to know your point of view on this Thanks 🙏

If an alien came to Earth how can we possibly explain to them that the farmers growing grain cant afford bread. That's just insane.

This video made me so sad for these farmers and the state of agriculture world wide. I grew up on a small farm in Minnesota. My dad farmed 160 acres (a very small amount). We barely made enough money to break even and the money that was left had to go to next year's seeds. We were in a very difficult place financially. As corn prices continued to decrease my father had to stop farming about 3 years ago and rent out the land to corporate farmers. There is no way to make a living in agriculture unless you are a corporation, and it is really sad for small farmers.

At 2:16, its incorrectly claimed that Govt. Provides subsidies only on wheat and rice there are 23 crops in MSP basket, govt. Just procures less of the other 21 crops because they are consumed less by the poor. Besides Rice is a water guzzling crop and one of the chief reason for water deficiency in Punjab.

as a farmer myself here in s small country that is Indonesia, i feel the same heartbreak. sad.

Such a tragedy. I’m Punjabi myself 2nd generation in the west. This region is one of the most beautiful places. My parents often talk about how it was in the past. Households had their own desi ghee, milk, wheat and other foods. It was pure. Those days People were healthy, and lived wholesome lives. When i go there i think, i wonder how this land looked like 100+ years before. No air pollution, green, and abundant. Long gone are those days. Punjabis were known to be strong and fit Our people are ruined by these so called modern farming techniques using Monsanto GMO crops, pesticides+ chemicals. It has enslaved our people. Ruined them financially and effected their health. We must return back to how it was like during the times of our grandparents or great grandparents.

Matters are made even worse in Punjab as most of the population is immigrating to Canada/UK/Australia leaving a poor, indebted population.

Indian farmers are very rigid and Don't want to change. Without crop rotation we all are doomed

The farmer's won in successfully bringing back old draconian farm laws which led to suicides of more than 60000 farmers in india.. no body talks about that

“No farmers no food” its a fact. We should respect farmers because they are the reason we are alive today..

Organic farming is not the solution. Sri-Lanka has a severe food crisis because of organic farming. We need science based crop rotation based on soil strength and weather patterns. But it's not beneficial for the corrupt govt officials to remove subsidies on wheat and rice and switch to other crops.

Corporatization of farming has resulted in the decline of the trade. Monsanto and other companies don't care about solutions. They care about creating problems that only they have the "solution" for and bill farmers and governments every step of the way towards solving them. Yet they never go away. They are here to stay forever.

Do they even know suffering? That statement hits hard

My family were wheat and sheep farmers in the British Isles and Australia from traceable history until I was a little boy. The constant loaning of money to finance the next crop and just scraping by is nothing new, it's been happening for decades and decades. We need to find a solution to this globally or we will all starve. Farmers literally put food on our tables.

Good job Vice Whenever I think Vice has lost its touch or is not as engaging as before, they come out with such substance…keep up the good work vice

Watching this, India's humanity, tolerance and respect for democracy puts Canada to shame.

"The food is sick so the society cannot be healthy. And your food is sick because your agriculture is sick" It seems very easy talk but the depth of these two sentences may ask further research.

So at the end the farmer leader says "Whole system needs to change" while protesting against the system change brought by Govt. What an irony !

I blame Punjab politicians for this mess. They have made farmers like addicts that want a constant fix of free water,free electricity.Not a single local party raises the issue of sustainable farming.Whole situtation is kinda sad .I believe farm laws were step in right direction,though benefits were not communincated very well

I used to think that agriculture was problematic in Brazil, but India is another level.

I always thought that resting the land and changing crops is better for the nutrients in soil, thus keeping the land more fertile. Pesticides that continue to be used have no impact on pests over time thus requiring more. The people ingest the pesticides and crop quality and yields decline. There has to be a better solution. Why are only 2 crops subsidize? Including more subsidized crops helps farmers to grow a larger number of different crops. Would that not help?

The sad part about this is that it only focuses on Northern part of Indian farmers. The farm laws were much appreciated in the southern part and now they've repealed the laws because idiots wanted them to be repealed

worst case ending: we'd be seeing documentaries about how Punjab was once this agricultural heart land of India. Greed is destroying humanity.

More subsidies for dealing with problems caused by subsidies. Great

Thanks to this they are moving to Australia and farming and protesting and taking Aussie jobs.

There are no herbicide tolerance GMO crops in India. So that line about having to spend more money on crops resistant to new chemicals is just BS from big organic.

The whole farm protest was misrepresented in Media. The farmers who were protesting themselves wanted change in farm law and existing farming practices. But not the way govt had proposed. For eg, take the mandi or auction yard, govt wishes to do away with it. But farmers want to keep it as it's a support system for farmers. Without Mandies, it would like skydiving without a spare parachute.

Small scale farms are not meant for crops production really since you need a big farm to get the economies of scale necessary to make it viable but there is a space for some to be producers of higher value speciality produce in terms if both crops and livestock.

They reject the reform now suffer the consequences.

Everybody in India wants their share of entitlements but no one wants to pay tax , they love to protest and demand their “rights”, but no one knows where the money is going to come from. to pay for all of this. Farmers want MSP subsidies, but money doesn’t grow on trees. All these subsidies make the food they grow so expensive that the massive surpluses cant be exported , is dumped in storage where it rots

Soo.... Anti modi propaganda won..... Farmers cut their own feet

In the three laws government allowed farmers to demand their own price and not the generalized one.

The producer and the consumer suffers while the middleman gets rich.... This is the main problem.... Farming should become a Govt Job , where people who have enough agriculture land and has ancestry of farming should be eligible for the job... Govt can decide on the crops , provide seeds and fertilizers and take the profit also , And pay Salary , Pension and other benefits to the farmer for his work... Bonus payouts to be given for Organic and high quality yield.

who all are cursing lenovo?

Which nation is more softer and civilized towards its own people? Which nation is authoritian India or Canada? Why didnt the young Swedish girl speak about what is happening in Canada?

In India you can see the world most expensive private house, behind one of the world biggest slum .

I’m kind of at a lost here. So if I understand, government subsidies support monoculture wheat and rice which is also destroying the environment and farmers livelihoods. So the government should stop subsidizing monoculture so farmers can switch their crops but they don’t want that and protest that?

Govt. Policies and specially the role of ICAR (Indian Council of Agricultural Research) are the main culprit. No policies, no quality, only shoe-licking and sub-standard education. Govt. And the council should impart changes. If the education for agriculture is sub-standard, then how will the agri.areas be of good model?????

Well documented. Hope you do this in other parts of India too and show how people are cultivating + issues faced due to this. Farmers are the root for the nation

These people are all basically saying “We should have stayed with the old ways of farming. They were better.” But…the old ways were going to lead to half of them dying of starvation…why were they better?

we need reforms in terms of changing the cropping pattern speacially in Punjab and adjoining areas beacuse if this continues agriculture will not be sustainable at all & the Punjab economy is gonna tank in next 8 -10 yrs . need revised farm bills/laws that promote better sustainable practices & incentivises farmers to change cropping pattern

Thank you very much for sharing Very sad and eye opening of the struggle with Punjab Farmers

Exploitation of farmers in India has been going on from British times. Unfortunately this sector has been been ignored by subsequent Govts.

The best brains of India should go for agriculture .........not doctors or engineers.....a country which can grow its own food is a strong country

The repealed laws did nothing to the subsidies, but allowed farmers to diversify their crops because they could then sell to buyers other than the govt if they wanted. The repeal of the new laws essentially kept the existing system which drives thousands to suicide, apart from the cancers and other ailments that the practices cause. Is corporations coming in still bad if it allows farmers to grow different crops and get better prices than offered by the govt?

The world is far too reliant on monofarming and large agricultural companies, and I think moving towards more sustainable methods is the right thing to do. However, just going back to the way things were because everything was great in the past and big companies and capitalism sucks, ignores the reason why farmers switched in the first place. The farmers union representative said at the end of the video, that the old ways were better, there was no debt and everyone was doing great. Then he glossed over the fact that the famers switched to more grain was because people were STARVING. At the beginning of the video, the professor says the only benefit of monfarming is quantity. Quantity is important when there are hundreds of millions of people starving in the world, and with an ever-growing population. That was true during the Green Revolution, which is why it happened, and is still true today. These farming techniques have become more sustainable and harmful over time because of corruption and shortsighted corporate greed, and reforms are definitely needed. But there are good reasons why the system was introduced, and on average the human has become better fed, fitter, larger and stronger as a result. There are pros and cons to every solution, and they should all be considered instead of claiming the old ways to be the fix-all.

Very informative for me as an agriculture student👍

50% of India’s population (small farmers) contribute only 13% of GDP. Farmers desperately need reforms. The Western Media halted necessary reforms by the government and now they’re crying.

As a canadian. I am so grateful for what I have.

I live in Punjab and my family is one of the moneylenders and procurement agent for these farmers! There is huge need to shift away from this monoculture practice. The big shocker is that these grains aren't even needed anymore. There is more than a surplus, every year the crops of wheat and rice will rot in government godown. They purchase it for 1888 Rs.\quintal and sell it in PDS for 5 Rs. Per KG. They even thought of making ethanol with the excess paddy. So much water, input and hardwork, they want to decompose it into ethanol. Only a government interventionist program can achieve this economic output

Farmers will be taken for granted until there is no food. But the average struggling low wage workers in the city don’t deserve that. Tough spot for many countries is in the future. It’s gotta change now before it’s too late and the farmers say no more. Then we all suffer.

Corporates were never a problem, 90% of the Land is owned by Small to Medium Scale farmers due to the Land Ceiling Act. Subsidies are the problem, indirectly inducing farmers to grow cash crops all due to the want of MSP. Sustainability, Variety and Health was out of the picture.

The same thing happened in Philippines because I watched the documentary. The foreign company asked farmers to use hybrid seed for higher yield. Only after two years, the land was ruined and they couldn't plant the old seed which has worked for centuries. The land died and farmers moved to cities as beggers on the streets.

FUN FACT: THERE WAS AND STILL IS NO WRITTEN MSP LAW, MSP WAS INTRODUCED TO REGULATE MARKET PRICES SO FARMERS COULD BENEFIT, NOT TO REPLACE THE MARKET. FARM LAWS WOULD HAD MADE NO CHANGE IN THAT. WEST ALWAYS PROTESTED AGAINST MSP BECAUSE IT WAS 'UNFAIR' FOR MARKET COMPETION. OUR FARMERS HAVE SURVIVAL CRISIS, BUT WEST IS FOCUSED ON PROFITS. FARMER LEADERS THEMSELVES SAID THAT DECISIONS REGARDING AGRICULTURE ARE UNDER STATE GOVT. WHICH IS TRUE, SO GUESS WHO IS RESPONSIBLE FOR PRESENT CONDITION.

Most of the information in this vice piece is good but is a bit skewed. First of all the subsidies are absolutely necessary for the farmers at this stage for them to diversify their crop production. But monocultures are by far the most effective way to consistently produce the largest crop yield. GMO crops can also play a role in reducing the amount of pesticides and water required in producing crops.

What's the alternative? India's got more than a billion people to feed... you can't do that by planting some fruit on an organic farm.

'How do they know what true suffering is' shows an add about earwax

The last line was kinda ironic,we have to change the structure and supporting those same old structure opposing new reforms . India needs to learn from New Zealand deregulating farming and ending subsidies.

Nothing is failing, no one’s dying. Everything’s fine and working properly. We dont want validation from the outside world about what’s happening in our nation.

I love India

I have been to India, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana and met farmers. The situation is every bit as dire as portraied in this video. Only when you meet the farmers their stories stick with you for the rest of your life.

In Mexico my grandpa gets a “pro campo” to help with the costs but it’s nothing. They grow bean only and each year they get less and less for their bean. Sometimes someone comes into town and says yeah we can sell your bean for xyz so everyone gives them their bean and then it ends up being a scam. Idk if my grandpa can continue to keep his lands if the price for bean is so low. There is also less family over there now to help out, they also don’t even like to farm.

Whoever made this video has no integrity. Although i agree with parts of the video, much of this is a blatant lie. For one there were no violent crackdowns on farmers. the video makes it look like 100s died in crackdowns while in they died due to covid which unions wouldnt admit as they believed covid was a govt conspiracy. Secondly govt never tried to do away with MSP, this was a law to allow for open markets that would push the same kind of farming you promote in your video. But when you have an agenda to push,truth doesnt matter.

"Down with imperialism! ...bring back famine!" hahahaha

10:45 Any links to a charity page or more info on the heritage farming mission? I only see the vice social media links lol

Farm law would have helped those farmers but we can't get away from these laws ourselves

Here’s a good one, Azolla is a invasive water fern that’s shown huge potential as as a biofertiliser and cleans the water that it inhabits

This situation is a lot more complicated and lot of loopholes which is not possible to understand from a video. This problem has a lot of sides, not just subsidy or pollution.

The look on that farmer’s face at 12:45 is just hoorible to behold.

# the documentary does not mention that across indian punjab, fertilizers are heavily subsidized, as are pesticides, as is diesel for agriculture, electric power is free for the tube well pumps, punjab farmers income is exempt from income tax. the punjabi farmer does not work his land, the labour is done by itinerant labour coming in from eastern india [uttar pradesh, bihar] referred to as purubia in punjabi pidgin. the itinerant labour are taken advantage of paid less than the minimum wage mandated by the district administration, possibly earning the lowest farm labour wages of any cereal growing nation. punjab farmers grow soft varieties of wheat, low protein, high yield, suitable for cakes, biscuits [crackers] because this wheat is high yield. the produce is guaranteed an assured price that is more often than not higher than market prices. there are no quality standards that have to be met when handing over the wheat to the buyer middlemen who then pass it onto the government procurement agency. payment is for the weight, volume, and is not affected by quality. punjab farmers lobbies are against silo storage, the primitive storing on open air plinths of bagged cereals covered by a plastic tarpaulin, with the stored grain exposed to the elements. these open air godown are infested with rodents. weevils, pests. the market simply does not want punjab wheat as it of poor quality, low protein and not the best for bread. so punjab wheat is passed onto central procurement for distribution to soldiers of the military, central armed para military police forces, free noon meal schemes for school children, and to the public distribution system for providing subsidized cereals to beneficiaries. punjab farmers themselves buy their flour at the grocery selling branded products [annapoorna, pillsbury, aashirvaad] with prominently displayed labels asserting the flour is from madhya pradesh grown sharbati high protein wheat. indian punjab is arid, with just one and half of the five rivers, the remaining went to pakistan, as did the indus. indian punjab is no land of rivers. across nearly 80 percent of punjab, irrigation is mostly by tubewell, drawing from the depleting water table, at depths that throw up toxic chemicals, salts, minerals. the top soil is totally destroyed. over irrigation, flooding [diesel is subsidized, electricity is free] flood irrigation [never drip], has left the arable lands saline. after manufacturing paddies in arid country to grow rice, now the cynical punjab farmer, ever ready for the quick profit has in many instances turned to shrimp farming on the saline land. shrimp farming effluent is notoriously toxic, the shrimp farmers sell this to gullible fellow farmers as nutrient rich liquid for 'organic' farming. punjab has absurd levels of cancer in its farming populations, alcohol and drug abuse is rampant in rural areas, the farming caste groups have the worst male female demographic ratio in the country leading to too many instances of men finding brides from poor in other provinces, even overseas. there are instances of brothers sharing a wife [polyandry]. military recruiters have for decades found punjab's young men simply not able to meet the standards for height, weight, chest expansion, or pass the entry level fitness tests. interestingly the average height of males has been decreasing, with a marked reduction compared to those of 1950s, 1960s. and over the years punjab youth have preferred to have their parents take on loans many fold greater than their annual income, sell land to fund their going to canada, britain, australia, new zealand registered as students at dodgy institutions and secure a student visa, aiming to stay on as immigrants. the only work most can manage is driving taxis, delivery vans, trucks, work as cleaners, and menials, carers in old age homes - 3D work: demeaning, dirty, drudgery. from student visa, to temporary visa and finally permanent residence in can take decades. mr angad singh too has gone down the route of 'playing the victim' - the aggrieved, self less, exploited sikh. romantic humbug is 'the' problem in post modern india.

WTO and many countries pressing India to end the subsidies on the crops under fare trade policies under the global trade ecosystem then how India will be able to give more subsidies and msp?

Indian farmers lost

❤️ India 🇮🇳 Family Farmer's 🌾👨‍🌾👩‍🌾🚜

No talk about the mountain of grains bought by the government which rot as there is limited use

you are fooled by the big corp and the USA. Seed must belong to the farmer just like the traditional way that the farmer collecting and maintaining seed.

Government always try to maintain low food prices..which snitch away the farmers hardwork.Government always says the farmers encome are taxed free but what about the middle man who sell farmers farm produce on 10 times higher rates. they came automatically in taxfree category..if government look into this issue the problem itself get solved. Government even not purchase this farm produce on market rate...

The most toxic news Channel on the internet

Rajiv dixit raised the topic years ago..He said there's a cancer patients special which runs to city for treatment. Which only carries cancer patients

this is example are the many issue in capital system that main focus only to provide profit to corporatization

It reminds us of the Irish potato famine, which was a result of wrong agreecultural policies especially monoculture, high yeald varieties etc.

Wasn't this thumbnail used before?

0:50 are u fking kidding me,that’s brutal asf bruh

Mumbai, you have the richest families overlooking and feeding off the poor. Respect the farmers!

Dang, and here I thought this was going to be a video about Minor League Baseball in India...

Only stuble burning creates smog??? What about the huge industries and factories???

India fighting the good fight. they win only to see an even worse future, that is a sacrifice to the greater good. hope you are well Indians much respect from Canada, keep fighting the good fight.

12:34 u can hear the pain in his voice

Norendomodi not only destroy Indian but also try to destroy our country Bangladesh, he send Raa in our podma rever project 13 Raa personal arrested from the podma rever project, you know why he try to destroy our podma rever project because Caina help us for this big project....

1:46 Vice News : This is Sukpura Me : The woman? Vice News : No, the village

My dad worked in a fertilizer company in the late 90's in South india. Used to tell horrific tales on how the company used to kidnap officers, scientists, bribe officials and add common salt to fertilizers to reduce costs. The workers in the plant itself would admit that using our products would ruin ones land.

Growing up in India I use to see a lot of different kinds of birds, ever since the use of chemicals and fertilizer and pollution.. only crows and pigeons are left, small species of birds and sparrows are now non existent in North India (Delhi, Punjab and Haryana)

As a visitor of India, the burning of stubble is one of the most visible aspects of this ecological disaster. Literally as soon as you land it smells like you're close to a forest fire, and it's with you 24/7. I stayed in a nice hotel in Agra and got upgraded to a room with a view of the Taj Mahal, about 1km/0.6mi away. I got in late so couldn't see it in the dark, and the next day I still couldn't see it because of the pollution. Every morning I'd wake up with a stuffy nose and a headache and would blow my nose into a tissue that quickly filled with black snot. It's so oppressive, you can't escape it. Ever seen a worrying air quality index like 100, 150? The scale often goes up to 500 with 300+ being "hazardous", a step over "very unhealthy". In Delhi the AQI often goes over 900, that was the case when I went there and saw it myself. This has a huge impact on the health of people who live there, a Boston College study estimated that air pollution in India resulted in *1.67 million* deaths in 2019, accounting for 17.8% of all deaths in the country. The scale of this disaster is hard to comprehend.

Very similar issues to our agriculture system here in the US. Too much reliant on big ag companies. The industrial agriculture complex is a real unseen issue.

Mr. Harcharan Singh is correct at 14:20 - the US is absolutely not a model for the rest of the world to follow. We have severe erosion problems, our farmland is losing its fertility, and the younger generation is leaving the industry behind. Vast stretches of farmland are now being bought up by Bill Gates! The only real growth area for a long time has been in organic farming, which might be the key to the future, along with traditional methods of multi-cropping such as those once practiced in the Punjab. All working people have common cause with the farmers of India and should support them. Thank you, VICE, for covering this story.

For anyone interested in leaning about this in more detail there is a great book called “can we feed the world without destroying it”

This is why I roll my eyes when big aerospace tech spend billions and talk about colonising Mars and the Moon when we can't even manage Earth's climate and our food security in what (compared to Mars) is ideal conditions.

Farmers of the world are in a tough spot. As the world urbanizes, political power gets even more concentrated in cities and governments are pushed to maintain low food prices. But this automatically undervalues the work of farmers. This leads to subsidies, support prices and fixed procurement all of which reduce the farmer's independence. The real crisis in farming is its economics and politics, rather than its ecology.

The pesticides that monoculture farming requires also completely devastate wildlife. In parts of the USA, wild bees are virtually extinct because of the overuse of pesticides.

The sadness in the eyes of the farmer is heart wrenching. May God give you strength

in Village India, its run on emotions and blackmailed by local leaders and peer pressure. it would need another social revolution at social level. It would take time for farmers to learn be self reliant , education and learn to incorporate traditional and modern techniques as well as support by local state government and society