Save small farms if you want good food

I grew up as a child in a middle class agrarian family in Kerala, a state that lies in the extreme south of India. Well, in my fond memories, still vivid are the days I helped the rural women who were sowing, transplanting and reaping paddy. There were small farmlands all along in the hamlet. Rural Kerala was abuzz with farming activities throughout the year. And there were farms aplenty.
After a very long gap, I recently visited the place, and to my utter dismay I found all the farms missing and elegantly designed duplexes all around. Yes, most of the state’s men migrated to middle-east and amassed money working overtime, only to construct houses in those farms!
Something needs to be done urgently to retain at least the remaining farms. In the other end of world, in the United States, singers and artistes are performing Farm Aid stage shows since 1980. The concert, the longest running benefit concert series in America, was held last weekend in Hershey, Pennsylvania.
In India, small farmers are ending their lives due to reasons innumerable. High cost of production, huge interests on loans, lack of hybrid seeds, extreme weather conditions, pests, low productivity, cheaper prices… there are umpteen reasons for them to resort to the extreme steps.
Governments should wake up. High-thinking people should unite. Farmers should be made aware. Now with the Central government’s decision to go ahead with FDI and all, people are confused as to whether it will help farmers or trap.
With bigger players are all set to enter farming sector, the chances of survival are bleak for small family farmers. A recent article in The Guardian says, “Traditional farmers of Africa and Asia are urged to give up growing food for their own people and raise commodity crops for us.” It says In India, hundreds of thousands have committed suicide, but most flee to the cities to join the estimated billion rural exiles who now live in urban slums.”
Everyone knows that food scarcity is imminent all over the globe. We have to do something to prevent people dying of starvation in huge bungalows and  on the roadside huts at the same time. Think guys, and let’s do something.
A fellow blogger Jan Cho wrote recently: “The decline of small family farms is not just a problem for the families losing their land. It’s a problem for individual consumers, society and the environment. “
Just remember that!