Question

Indian farmers were not willing to cultivate opium because …………………………….
1.It required fertile land and needed more care
2.Opium cultivation spoiled their health
3.Opium was addictive and its cultivation was immoral
4.The rent to be paid to the government was high

Answer 1

Hint: Opium or poppy’s tears is a dry latex obtained from the seed capsules of opium poppy. Approximately 12 percentages of opium are composed of the analgesic alkaloid morphine. After chemical treatment, heroin and other synthetic opioids can be produced for medicinal purposes and illegal drug trade.

Complete answer:
Agriculture is India's primary industry. India is mainly an agricultural economy, with nearly 70 percentage of the population directly or indirectly relying on agriculture for their livelihoods. Despite the rapid development of the secondary and tertiary industries in India, most people depend on agriculture for their livelihoods. The Green Revolution made India self-sufficient in grains and grains for daily consumption. Today, more and more farmers have also adopted modern farming methods and tools.

The trade was run by the East India Company, the powerful multinational corporation established for trading with a royal charter that granted it a monopoly over business with Asia.Indian farmers are unwilling to transfer their best fields to opium cultivation because this will lead to a decline in grain and legume production. Many cultivators have no land. In order to grow opium, they had to rent land from the landlord and pay rent. Growing opium is a difficult process and time-consuming. This will leave farmers almost no time to take care of other crops. The government paid very low prices for opium, which made opium unprofitable.

Hence, the correct answer is option (A).

Note:Farmer suicides accounted for 11.2 percentages of all suicides in India. Activists and scholars have provided many conflicting reasons for farmers’ suicide, such as anti-farmer laws, high debt burdens, bad government policies, subsidy corruption, crop failures, public mental health, personal problems, and family problems.