16. India, let's save our farmers
Over 10,000 farmers are committing suicide every year in India due to debts and destruction of harvests, which can easily be solved by a crop, which is valued to be worth a trillion dollars. It is easy to grow and has thousands of benefits to mankind and the planet. This prohibition has directly affected the lives of all mankind and the earth. Is it worth caring about?
Farmer suicide is such an endemic in India that if you Google the question, “How many farmers are there in India?”, the Wikipedia page on “Farmers’ suicides in India” comes up even before the asked question. That should tell you what a serious problem this is.
To understand how big the issue is, we must first appreciate how many people are dependent on agriculture in our country. According to the Census 2011, the number of cultivators, i.e. people who work their own land, stood at 118.6 million. In addition, a further 144.3 million people, are employed as agricultural labourers who work on another person’s land without owning it.
Combining these two figures gives us a total of 263 million Farmers, or 22% of the population (1.2 billion at the time).
It is estimated, however, that OVER 600 million people, or half of the indian population, are dependent on agriculture in related industries. In any case, one-fifth of the population directly working in agriculture is a substantial percentage.
Before we understand the problems and derive solutions to it, let’s examine India’s major agricultural outputs.
India’s major crops can be divided into four categories:
food grains (rice, wheat, maize, millets, and pulses),
plantation crops (tea, coffee, coconut, and rubber),
horticulture crops (fruits and vegetables), and
cash crops (cotton, jute, sugarcane, tobacco, and oilseeds).
Just what all can Cannabis replace?
Not just replacing it in terms of the final product, but, how much better is it in terms of Nutritional quality, Efficiency of crop, Ease of growing it, Durability of the Final product, etc.
Is cannabis the true missing connection to a more sustainable and profitable agricultural industry?
Yes! It Is!
5 points to consider
Cannabis grows everywhere and in all climatic conditions!from Kanyakumari to Kashmir and from Arunachal to Gujarat, the plant never complains.
It does what it does best. to grow Wild & Free! And grow to the fullest extent in less than 120 days (4 months).Cannabis needs extremely less water as compared to our staple and cash crops.which avoids the need of high quantity water sources or being that crop which is dependent completely on rain (like the crops which most of our farmers are limited to)
It is the most generous plant in the entire plant kingdom.Cannabis offers everything!
> Seeds that are the most nutritious edible product which can be converted to flour or seed oil
> Flowers that can cure and control hundreds of diseases from Cancer to AIDS & from Chronic conditions to simple illnesses.
> Fibres that are one of the strongest fibres known to man and can replace everything from energy to clothes,
> Leaves that have mild medicinal values and can make healthier cosmetics to a healthier chai when blended with the flowers, and which can also feed the nutrients back to the soil through composting.
> Roots that grow deep and aerate the soil back again along with all the essential nutrients.It is the most efficient crop known to manbased on the quantity of its seed & fibre production, its ability to harvest in as less as 120 days, requiring little to no pesticides or herbicides to grow needing very little water and offering its harvests to more industries at once than any other crop in the plant kingdom.
It delivers all the basic needs of man!It can help redesign our entire world by replacing all of the products that we consume with eco-friendly, carbon-neutral production, highly durable, and a bio-degradable product!
From curable medicines, to super-strong construction materials to bio-plastics to graphene and a lot more! Cannabis has solutions to everything.
Its like, God (Nature) made this plant for Man to answer all of our wants and needs.
Cause and effect : India’s pitiful agricultural situation
India has lost over 40 farmers every single day or over 10,000 farmers every single year or over 3,00,000 farmers in the last 20 years to suicide.
Bankruptcy accounts for most of these, as farmers drown under crushing debt due to droughts or crop failures.
Some social activist groups also suggest a link between genetically modified (GM) crops and farmer suicides; for example GM cotton seeds cost nearly twice as much as ordinary ones, forcing farmers into debts they cannot repay when crop fails. Those farmers that do not commit suicide are forced into the lowest-paying, most menial labour jobs to eke out a living.
You, as a city dweller, may feel far removed from these pressures, but the fact is that this issue affects you personally.
If more and more people drop out of the farming profession, who is going to grow your food? Do you trust big corporates to grow organic, healthy, nutritious, non GM food?
If we humans keep consuming the wrong products for our needs, like wood, paper, cement, petroleum products, lithium based batteries etc., without understanding
*what its made from,
*how it was processed,
*how safe is it to consume or dispose
*how much energy was required to produce these products
*and the total environmental damages that it can incur
by our simple acts of consumption, then it’s high time we start paying attention to our acts in the society.
And these environmental damages are growing globally with our ever increasing rates of population and modernisation.
So, it is highly important for the world to come up with sustainable answers to most of our needs and there is nothing out there, in the entire world, which can outperform Cannabis!
Cannabis is a boon to the entire planet.
And when it comes to our farmers, anywhere from one-fifth to one-half of our people in India are suffering untold distress and do not have the means to lift themselves out of their situation.
But you do. You have a responsibility to take a stand on this so that farmers can look forward to a better future.
A healthy cannabis crop can replace most of india's staple crops and all of India’s current cash crops, in some cases even simultaneously.
Cannabis Hemp Seeds holds better nutritional values than our staple crops.
Cannabis fibre can replace cotton and jute crops.
Cannabis can replace oilseed crops such as linseed and groundnut, and
obviously can be smoked instead of tobacco (and may even be preferable!)
Let’s look at the statistics!
One acre of cannabis (hemp) produces about 5000 kgs of hemp seeds. When cold pressed, this yields over 1000 litres of hemp seed oil, which is both a food and a biodiesel fuel. As a byproduct, this process also yields approximately 3000 kgs of high protein hemp flour.
Hempseed oil sells at US$8 per litre, which means over US$ 8000 worth of oil can be produced from just one acre. The flour sells at US$ 2 per kg, i.e. US$6000 from one acre.
In all, the value of the seeds alone from one acre is approximately$8000 or an equivalent of 5 Lakhs or more in less than 4 months.
Just the Seeds alone can save our farmers. But, along with that super food Cannabis also delivers about 6 to 25 tonnes of Hemp Bast Fibre and Core Fibre, which can be used to make paper, fibreboards, ropes, linens, clothes, shoes, bio-plastics, bio-cements, bio-fuels, construction materials, flooring materials, sound proof materials, electronic bio-batteries etc.
All in all, no matter which industry these harvests are fed to, our farmers can make double money by producing seeds for food
and also fibres for our every other industrial needs.
Through fibres and its generous production, it adds an extra $10,000 or an equivalent of another Rs. 6,00,000 for every acre of land, in just about 4 months!
So, a farmer, who holds just 1 acre of land, can make upto Rs. 10,00,000 (Ten Lakhs) for every harvest (4 months) which is about Rs 2,50,000 for every month.
And on top of this, we never accounted the value of flowers for medicines, but we see a bright world where the next generation of humans will be self-independent for their medical needs.
But still, all the flowers that the farmer gets along with seeds and fibres, can be sold to cosmetic industries and/or tea or fresh pressed industries. And it can only bring a farmer more money than what we have already explained. It is indeed a SUPER CROP!
Cannabis requires minimal water.
Cannabis requires zero chemicals.
Cannabis cleans the air, from harmful radiation and absorption of our carbon load
Cannabis can produce medicines for cures.
Cannabis can produce better products for humans.
Cannabis helps keep the environment, clean, and
Cannabis flower consumption (Gaanja) makes us, humans, healthier, creative, wiser and more spiritual.
So, let’s give our farmers a viable source of income and the means to live with dignity and respect.
Let’s end this meaningless prohibition and legalise the cannabis so that farming can become a profitable industry
that supports our farmers as well as the nation and yields high-quality, eco-friendly products and creating sustainable industries.
Cannabis is the greatest economic boost to India.
When done in the right way, as suggested to the govt, GLM-India's Legalisation Model(coming soon), can help generate enormous amounts of tax money to our nation through the new HEMP ECONOMY.
India's arable land area which is approx 400 million acres, is the second largest in the world. Its gross irrigated crop area is 215.6 million acres, is the largest in the world.
Close to 400 millions acres of hemp can be grown in India. Close to 400 million acres of a new taxable crop is yet to emerge in this country.
Our current leader, Shri Narendra Modi ji, dreams and initiates great projects under 'Swachh Bharath' and 'Make in India'. There is no other project that India can benefit from, more than the GLM-India's : 'Indian Hemp Industries'.
It can
clean the environment,
create a health impact on billions of lives,
create the greatest employment opportunity for this nation,
create a dignified agricultural profession and
generate thousands of cleaner and greener industries on all corners of this Great Nation.
So what are we waiting for?
Let’s be the world leaders of hemp innovation and a new emerging science of medicines, ecology and green industries, but more importantly, let's open a green door for our farmers first.
A trillion dollar crop is locked up for no reason. And growing hemp can save the lives of millions of our farmers. Let's legalise it, India.
Let's design a better future.
Special thanks to Danny, Amy, Eshna, Aditya, Anshul, Priya