You will hear a short lecture. Write a summary for a fellow student who was not present at the lecture. You should write 50 – 70 words. You have 10 minutes to finish this task. Your response will be judged on the quality of your writing and on how well your response presents the key points presented in the lecture.
The debt today is so high, it’s two hundred thousand rupees, three hundred thousand rupees of peasant who have no capital. They who know within a year or two, when they accumulate that kind of debt. Where is the debt coming from? It’s coming from a seed that is costing a hundred thousand to two hundred thousand rupees per kilogram, depending on what you got. Seed that used to be free, used to be theirs. Pesticides each time, they more they use, the more they have to use, 12 sprays, 15 sprays, 20 sprays. Pesticides used in just the last five years in the land areas of India has showed up by 2000 percent. That’s why the free market and globalization have brought and since we are talking about peasants, who have no money, who have no capital, they can only by expensive seeds and expensive pesticides by borrowing. And who lend that money? The seed companies that sell the pesticides, which are the same companies that sell the seeds, as you know, are now also the major creditors.
