The dying fields

"Once known as India's cotton belt, the cotton-growing region of Vidarbha, central India, is now being called the suicide belt. Crop failures, sinking global cotton prices, spiraling debt, and a forbidding bureaucracy are driving farmers to unbearable levels of despair. This Wide angle report captures the tense relations between farmers and illegal money lenders, traveling salesmen hawking expensive "miracle seeds, " and a businessman-turned-activist who is staking a political career on the cause of Vidarbha's farmers -- and farm widows."--Container.