India, Aug. 13 -- Vishal Pawar chose to be a farmer. He worked with a pesticide company to gain in-depth knowledge about different kinds of pesticides. He left his job in 2010 to start farming on a plot of 15 acres owned by his family, in the drought-prone Vidarbha region of Maharashtra. He irrigated his farmland with water from a well in this plot, using modern techniques. But extreme drought in 2013 sucked the water out his well, as well as the lifeblood out of his ambitions. His crop failed. He fell in debt, and with it, the inevitable debt trap that a large number of Indian farmers are suckered into each time drought hits and monsoons fail.
He leased another 10 acres of land, hoping to put in extra effort to help repay his debts. The s...