India today continues to witness both protests and suicides by farmers. These appear to be the only ways to
confront rural agrarian distress by a majority of farmers, facing unviable agricultural livelihoods and unsustainable futures, despite their best efforts to manage climate change, as reflected in the vagaries of the monsoon, and unpredictable markets. While for the first, scientific solutions can be found, price volatility and market instability are increasingly shaped by political decisions and policies linked to global trade and industry. The immediate responses to both farmer suicides and protests have been farm loan waivers. These are, however, short-term measures, and do not address the longer-term sustainability of the farm
sector. Here, we propose six key principles for ensuring sustainability in relation to food and nutrition security.