Why is India then importing wheat and other food grains? Why do farmers commit suicide?
In Vidarbha, 1,600 farmers committed suicide last year. On the suicide front, first of all, that’s a figure of three years ago. There was a period when there was a lot of distress. Those numbers have come down. If you look at those numbers these are not higher than the peak three years ago. It is not that before this government came to power there was no suicide. There are suicides in every group in the country every year. So, I just do not believe that the evidence of suicide suggests rural distress compared to the situation that existed earlier. Import of food is not a sign that agriculture is not doing well. We are importing food and we are exporting food. In years of plenty we exported food. When there’s shortage we import food. Food import took place last year and actually we wanted to be absolutely sure that there won’t be any food shortage. The last two years, including this year, we are running record food crops, granaries are over full. So, the import of food is not at all an
