Durga Singh is being taken to his funeral by his family and friends. He committed suicide by drinking pesticide after being threatened with death by a money lender. .Since June 2005, more than 5,000 farmers have killed themselves across India. This spate of suicides has been brought about by, amongst other things, the rising cost of farming cotton, the cost of fertilisers and pesticides and new genetically modified (GM) seeds that cost more but have not produced the higher yields that were promised. Most of these farmers have debts to the banks on which they have defaulted. They are forced to borrow from local money lenders at exorbitant rates of interest which they have no means of repaying.