An alarming trend continues to make headlines: the high rate of Indian farmer suicides. Due to extreme debt, crop failure, and lack of agricultural subsidies, Indian cotton farmers are having great difficulty competing in the global market, or even keeping their subsistence farms afloat. The New York Times reports that “Changes brought on by 15 years of economic reforms have opened Indian farmers to global competition and given them access to expensive and promising biotechnology, but not necessarily opened the way to higher prices, bank loans, irrigation or insurance against pests and rain.” In this case it seems that the lauded “Green Revolution” is doing more harm than good.

In Vidarbha, a central Indian area known for cotton farming, there have been an estimated 767 suicides over a 14-month period which ended in August. This human crisis has led Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to respond with “quick fixes” that includes a $156 million package to rescue “suicide prone” districts across the country. Although such short-term actions are indeed necessary, the Indian government needs to seriously address underlying structural problems that have caused the suicides.

Few farmers can afford insurance for their crops, so most must rely upon the timing of the monsoons to have a successful harvest. Given the risky nature of farming, the stakes are even higher when expensive genetically modified (GM) seeds enter the picture. Thirty-one year old cotton farmer Anil Kondba Shende committed suicide after his GM crops failed three times in a row. Although these seeds (Bt) were designed by Monsanto to withstand the bollworm and reduce pesticide use (although its ability to even do that has been questioned), they don’t work if the rains don’t come. With growing debt and shrinking assets, Shende, like so many other farmers, saw no other option but death.

It is impossible to ignore the human toll of these suicides, as farming families across India lose family members to this “plague” of suicides. Although GM seeds have been promoted as the ultimate solution to food security in the Global South, they come at far too high a cost to poor farmers. Without proper national support, Indian farmers will continue to face devastating losses, mounting debts, and a depressing lack of options: debt or death?