Farming Loans for the Poor

Recently I received a rather desperate e-mail from a Tibetan nun in India that I have sponsored the past few years. Her father is a farmer and, in order to jumpstart his crops, he took out a small loan. His crops failed and now he is unable to pay the loan back.

I asked Nam, the sponsee, how much her father took out in his loan, and it took a few e-mails before she finally responded.

You have also asked me how much money did father borrowed,I asked him and he told Rs.20,000. Its[sic] quite much but all are doing the same.

I looked up 20,000 Indian rupees to see how much that is in dollars: $496 by the current exchange rate.

For $500, a farmer may lose his land...it's hard to believe. I will send her some money (not all of it) and I sent her a warning about loans, losing your land to the bank, etc. It seems that the farming crisis of the mid-20th century in the U.S. is happening in other parts of the world now. It is particularly upsetting because Nam and her family are refugees -- apparently, the loan came from a refugee resettlement project of some kind.

This story gives me a little perspective on the stress of our debts right now. What would Nam think about our $186,000 worth of mortgage, credit card and student loan debt? Probably she would pass out in horror. Five hundred dollars is enough to decimate her family.

Someday I may look back and think my debts were pretty minor...I hope. Until then, I will be scrambling to find some money to send to Nam. I hate to reward bad behavior, but I also pledged to keep her family from starvation. Always the poor are hit the hardest...