Fair Trade in India
Posted on March 29, 2010, by Hanna Ingber Win, under Business, India, International.
AMRAVATI, India — Rajendra Panja Kadu lives with his family in a small, humble home in a farming village in central India. He works three jobs — farming his two acres, milking his water buffalo and working as a laborer on others’ farms — but Kadu, like millions of other Indian farmers, can barely make ends meet.
Kadu earns about 60,000 rupees ($1,300) a year and must rely on government ration cards to help him buy food, he says as he sits on his wooden bed. Mounds of cotton puffs waiting to be sold peek out from under the bed. Large sacks of soybeans lean against one wall. Paintings of Hindu gods adorn another.
When Kadu is low on cash, he must borrow about 10,000 rupees a year from moneylenders, who he says charge him a 5 percent monthly interest rate.
The farmer, who lives in Ghodghwan village in Amravati district, says he continues farming despite the difficulties because he has no better options. “It is my business. It is my job,” he said. “I don’t know anything else.”
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