As Covid funeral pyres burn, gloom gathers over India’s rural economy

Regardless of how well India's economy recovers from the pandemic, the farm sector is unlikely to play a significant role, as rural households are saddled with debt and unable to make the purchases necessary to boost farm output or keep money circulating in their communities.

Having watched his father’s funeral pyre burn by a riverbank close to their farm last month, Indian sugarcane grower Dattatray Bagal and his brothers had to set aside grief to count the financial cost of the coronavirus’s impact on their family. They had hoped to buy a tractor for the small farm in western Maharashtra state, but the brothers spent all their savings on hospital treatment for their father and three other family members who survived. "We can't think about any big-ticket purchases this year," Bagal said as he irrigated the fields in the farm below the mountains of the Western Ghats.