There is a poignant article in today's New York Times on the alarming rate of suicides amongst India's farmers - more than 17,000 in 2003. Tracing the causes of this epidemic, the article explores a confluence of forces from moneylenders to American multinationals selling genetically modified seed. An excellent article, recommended reading and, in my opinion, an important counterbalance to our frequent praise of market driven development.

You may have read a blog I posted recently discussing some of the problems with the Fairtrade system; this drew directly on a Financial Times article detailing the ways coffee growers in Peru pass their products off as Fairtrade while circumventing the rules. Soon after, the Fairtrade Foundation wrote back with a defense of the system and principles by which farmers are certified and monitored.

The press release answers the FT reporter’s charges that these Peruvian farmers make below the legal minimum wage, arguing that they in fact earn more than what uncertified growers in the region pay their employees despite selling only a fraction of their full crop.