FARMING HAS BECOME A SCAM - FARMER IS NOT A PRODUCER ANYMORE
- Madhukar Dama
- Jun 2
- 6 min read
The Energy Crisis of Modern Agriculture
INTRODUCTION: THE BETRAYAL OF A SIMPLE IDEA
The very essence of farming — minimum input, maximum output — has been quietly inverted. Traditional farmers once relied on natural cycles: compost, monsoon, sun, and cattle. They sowed, harvested, and fed their families — not just with food, but with security, surplus, and seeds for next season.
Today, under the influence of chemical-based, industrial agriculture, we burn diesel to make urea, dig up phosphates from distant mines, genetically modify seeds in labs, and spray poison to kill everything but the crop. We input more energy than we get back.
That’s not farming. That’s a scam.
---
SECTION 1: ENERGY RETURN ON ENERGY INVESTED (EROEI)
The EROEI is a measure of how much energy you get out for every unit you put in.
Traditional farming EROEI: Ranges from 5:1 to 10:1, depending on region (FAO & UNEP, 1980s field studies).
Modern chemical farming EROEI: Often <1:1, meaning more energy is spent producing food than the caloric value returned.
🔹 Example:
A 2008 study by David Pimentel (Cornell University) showed that:
> Producing 1 calorie of industrial food requires 10 calories of fossil fuel input — through machinery, synthetic fertilizers, irrigation, and transport.
So, for every 1 kg of rice, wheat, or corn produced — you burn more energy (in fuel, synthetic inputs) than the food gives back.
---
SECTION 2: GREEN REVOLUTION – THE DECEPTION OF YIELD
The Green Revolution, praised as India’s savior, was a clever marketing campaign for Western fertilizer and seed companies.
Here's what happened:
1. Yields went up – temporarily.
2. But so did:
Water usage (irrigation-intensive hybrid crops)
Pesticide dependence (monoculture vulnerabilities)
Debt (due to input costs)
Soil infertility (over time)
Nutritional collapse (less nutrient-dense crops)
🔹 Study: A 2019 paper in Nature Sustainability observed that Indian farmers had lower net returns from chemical farming due to declining soil health and high input cost.
🔹 Result: Higher output per acre but lower real food value per input.
---
SECTION 3: FERTILIZERS ARE ENERGY SINKS
Nitrogen fertilizer (urea) is produced via the Haber-Bosch process, which consumes:
~ 1% of global fossil fuel use annually
Up to 5 liters of diesel energy per kg of urea
🔹 Stat: India imports nearly 10 million tonnes of urea per year.
That’s 50 billion liters of diesel energy-equivalent wasted just to grow crops… that cause acidity and diabetes.
So, farming today runs on oil, not on sunlight and soil.
---
SECTION 4: THE OUTPUT IS POISON, NOT FOOD
What are we really getting?
Chemical-grown tomatoes: Look red, taste like cardboard, last 4 days.
Indigenous tomato varieties: Smaller, juicier, store for weeks, richer in lycopene.
🔹 Study: A 2010 paper in Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry reported that organically grown crops had 20–40% more antioxidants and micronutrients than chemically grown counterparts.
So while chemical farming gives quantity, it takes away quality — nutrient loss is the hidden cost.
---
SECTION 5: FARMER AS CONSUMER, NOT PRODUCER
The farmer has now become the consumer of:
Hybrid seeds (non-replantable)
Pesticides (monthly)
Fertilizers (every season)
Water (more than ever)
Loans (every year)
And at the end of the season, he has to sell his food, buy his own food, and start over with new debt.
🔹 Stat: National Sample Survey (2018) showed that 52% of Indian farmers are in debt.
🔹 Reality: Modern farming isn’t a production system — it’s a trap.
---
SECTION 6: PHILOSOPHICAL INVERSION – NATURE TO INDUSTRY
> “Real farming is working with nature.
Modern farming is fighting nature.”
Chemical farming uses:
Herbicides to kill weeds (instead of mulching)
Pesticides to kill insects (instead of biodiversity)
Borewells to suck groundwater (instead of conserving rainwater)
Hybrid seeds (instead of saving local ones)
This isn’t agriculture.
It’s warfare.
🔹 Fukuoka, in The One-Straw Revolution, called this:
> “A clever thief stealing from nature and blaming the soil.”
---
SECTION 7: WHO PROFITS FROM THIS SYSTEM?
Fertilizer companies (IFFCO, Bayer, Syngenta)
Tractor companies (Mahindra, John Deere)
Pesticide makers (Monsanto, UPL)
Irrigation pump makers
Banks and microfinance firms
🔹 Not the soil.
🔹 Not the eater.
🔹 Not the farmer.
---
SECTION 8: THE REAL FARMERS NEVER NEEDED CHEMICALS
In the 1960s, India had:
2–3 acre farms
Seed sharing culture
Compost pits, desi cows
Local millet-based diets
Nobody needed hybrid rice or borewells.
🔹 Case Study:
Villages in Odisha and Karnataka who returned to traditional millet farming using cow dung and rainwater harvesting showed tripled yields in 3 years (Source: WASSAN, Deccan Development Society).
---
CONCLUSION: YES, FARMING HAS BECOME A SCAM
What was once a life-giving, self-reliant, low-energy practice has now been converted into a profiteering, input-heavy, energy-wasting scam.
It doesn’t feed. It sells.
It doesn’t grow. It extracts.
It doesn’t sustain. It collapses.
BUT THERE IS HOPE
Return to natural, local, indigenous farming.
Return to sun, soil, seed, and cow.
Don’t chase yield.
Chase nourishment.
---
---
A Farmer Burns More Diesel Than He Eats
(A Bukowski-style rant on the scam of modern farming)
he wakes up at 4.
not because he wants to.
but because he has to.
the cow died last year.
no dung, no milk.
sold for ₹7,000.
spent it on pesticides.
the rats came anyway.
he walks through his land
that isn’t his
(not really)
because the bank owns the soil
and the seed company owns the crop
and the goddamn monsoon hasn’t come
since the year his daughter was born.
his son wears a tie in Hyderabad.
"farming is outdated, appa."
the son eats rice grown by another father
who also thinks his son is special.
he pours diesel into the pump.
₹94 a litre.
4 hours a day.
for a crop that sells at ₹18/kg
after drying, grading, loading, begging.
they said “increase yield.”
so he used more urea.
the soil cracked.
worms died.
everything green turned brown next year.
they said “use this new hybrid.”
can’t save the seeds.
₹2,000 a packet.
he used to grow five grains.
now he grows one.
because the market says so.
because the mandis say so.
because some man in Delhi said
“we need to feed the nation.”
the rats now eat what’s left in the sacks.
he poisons them too.
he poisons everything.
including himself.
his skin itches.
his nails are black.
his breath smells like nitrogen.
he doesn’t notice.
he’s too tired to notice.
they said Green Revolution.
it was green for the company.
not for him.
not for the soil.
once, his grandfather sang while sowing.
now, there’s just the hum of the motor
and the silence of things that don’t come back.
he used to have time.
to sit.
to talk.
to smile.
now he has loans.
bills.
calls from microfinance women
who wear pink sarees and smiles
and remind him he missed a payment.
his neighbor drank pesticide last December.
nobody came.
except a journalist.
who clicked a photo
and wrote,
“Farming crisis deepens in drought-hit village.”
he doesn’t cry.
he doesn’t think.
he just walks.
plants.
waits.
hopes.
hope is the last scam.
because the sun doesn’t care.
the seed doesn’t care.
and the god he once prayed to
is now behind a screen
telling him to apply for a subsidy.
he fills out forms.
gives thumbprints.
adds Aadhaar.
uploads land records.
just to get a bag of free urea.
his field once grew sorghum, millet, cowpea.
now it grows disappointment.
the only thing that grows well
is his electricity bill.
and the tree near the borewell.
it doesn't fruit
but at least it doesn’t ask for anything.
he looks up.
clouds are missing.
he looks down.
worms are missing.
he looks inside.
he is missing.
---
(somewhere far away...)
a man in a coat
writes a report:
“Farm productivity shows signs of growth.
Chemical inputs remain essential for food security.”
he doesn’t know
that the only thing growing
is a hole.
in the earth.
in the man.
in the meaning of it all.
---
