Farmers miseries and the media

By Na.Karantha Peraje

It is as important as the food we eat, to have a concern about who grows it, for a society in which we are living in.But the indian farmer is in greatest distress than ever before. It is the responsibility of the society to instill the confidence among them. Certainly, our media plays a mojor role in it. But, is our media handling the situation effectively? This was the hot topic for the debate in a workshop for Journalists, which held recently at Centre for Alternative Agricultural Media(CAAM), Dharwad.

Let's Look at this.A farmer commits suicide in a village. We can see his wife children and other family member crying over the dead body repeatedly in our media. It becomes front page news in our news papers. True. It has to. But as time passes; somehow the family of the victim stands up against all odds, after this vicious incident has happened. But do our media, especially the popular or mainstream ever have tried to portray this development as they sensatinalised the 'Suicide' incident earlier?

Certainly not. Because of these kind of hurried and irresponsible acts of our media, now every incident of death becomes a 'Farmers suicide' in our villages.Definitely media could have avoided these 'Blunder' if it had portrayed the issue in a more positive manner.

For instance, look at the incident of death of peacocks, which took place in Gadag recently. 'Actually only around 12 to 13 peacocks have died in the incident. But the media mayhem went on reporting more than 200 deaths! What is perplexing is that few days later when the truth came out, no media was there to cover it! It is indeed sad that our media is interested only in sensationalising the issue rather than portraying factual things. Positive follow-up journalism is almost died its death' argued R.S.Patil, a farmer.

One of the key resource person for the workshop, C.U.Bellakki also had agreed to this. 'Films, gossips, glamour,crime, betrayel etc have filled every frames of our visual media. This is also applicable to our print media as well. Positive stories, Developmental issues are not at all getting priority it should get in our media. It is disheartenig that our media is moving away from the responsibility of instilling confidence among betrayed sections of our society' said Bellakki.

Then how media can handle the 'Worse' situations?

Let's look at this example. North Karnataka witnessed severe drought in recent years. The problem of water scarcity was at its peak. Now how media can report the situation positively? During these tough times Krishi Vijnana Kendra, Hulkoti has done a wonderful job.

Dr.L.G.Hiregowder, professor, KVK said: 'To erradicate the crisis which our farmers are facing, adopting the method of Organic farming is the only way. Because all input costs are very much less here, also the output is of the good quality and quantity. We launched a campaign to create awareness among farmers about positive aspects of organic farming. Along with this we also organized several workshops to make farmers of the region acquainted with benefits of self help groups, Water harvesting techniques, microfinance systems etc. We even carried out mock demonstrations of water harvesting. Iam greatful to our media which covered these aspects well'

'But did our journalists visited the spot where you have carried out developmental works? How many of them really visited and reported?'-Quick reply from another panelist Shivananda Kalave.

This is the story of Channa Basappa Kombali: 'We had a plenty of forest in our place. We didn't even knew what the water scarcity is! But as the consumption of water was increased and since no recharging measures were taken at that time, scarcity of water became a major problem. Now, we adopted water harvesting methods in over 165 wells. Situation has resumed as it was some years ago. Media has covered this development effectively. Channabasappa was even conferred 'Person of the year' award by KannadaPrabha.

"No doubt our farmers are in distress now. ut still there are so many of them who are leading peaceful life by adopting nature friendly farming techniques. The tale of those brave farmers who stood up against all odds' Said Shivananda Kalave. 'We have people who ate pumpkins, sugarcane to live during drought!' he added Dr.Prakash Bhat.

Our journalists should do some responsible journalism rather than 'Desk Journalism'. Media should throw light on positive developmental aspects rather than portraying negative stories and sensationalising it. These were the other major points which came for discussion in the workshop.

(Translated by B.Jayakishore. Na.Karantha Peraje is the assistant editor of Adike Patrike. I thank him for his wonderful article)