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Harvest: The True Cost of Cotton
Harvest transports listeners to the beautiful and eerie world of India’s cotton fields. Source of the most intimate and universal of commodities, we find these white-flecked lands pushed to their limit by global pressures.
A young farmer is everyone thinks they know who did it, but the village holds many secrets. A widow battles to reclaim her dead husband’s land and, despite incredible obstacles, makes a go of farming it alone. Two young men return from the city to take over their family we follow their harvests, their attempts to sell their crop at a profit, their hopes of love and marriage, and their dreams of social change. A moneylender is terrifyingly honest about his own deadly role in this unforgiving system.
Despite the pressures they face, the characters in this unique series maintain profound connections to nature and the sacred. Offering an unprecedented window onto the everyday struggles of these essential producers, Harvest shows how their daily choices shape not just their own futures, but the fabric of the entire world.
A young farmer is everyone thinks they know who did it, but the village holds many secrets. A widow battles to reclaim her dead husband’s land and, despite incredible obstacles, makes a go of farming it alone. Two young men return from the city to take over their family we follow their harvests, their attempts to sell their crop at a profit, their hopes of love and marriage, and their dreams of social change. A moneylender is terrifyingly honest about his own deadly role in this unforgiving system.
Despite the pressures they face, the characters in this unique series maintain profound connections to nature and the sacred. Offering an unprecedented window onto the everyday struggles of these essential producers, Harvest shows how their daily choices shape not just their own futures, but the fabric of the entire world.
- GenresNonfiction
Audible Audio
Published September 18, 2025
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
December 16, 2025
Another Audible original that lists itself as an audiobook but is actually a series of podcast episodes smushed together. Sigh.
I went in to this as a fibre artist who wants to educate themself on the production of the materials I use, and the human cost of their growth and use.
Well, this isn't that.
This is a series of journalistic stories from a small Indian village where cotton production is the main livelihood. We meet cousins who fight over land boundaries, a widow who fights to keep her husband's farm, and growers who struggle to get fair prices for their harvests. It is eye-opening stuff and seemingly well-researched, but this is not a story about cotton. That cotton isn't profitable enough for the farmers is a problem for sure, but the bigger problems come from the struggles of the Indian working class, societal pressures, laws that hurt farmers, the predatory money lenders. These things I don't believe are unique to the cotton growing industry.
This is interesting, just not what I signed up for.
I went in to this as a fibre artist who wants to educate themself on the production of the materials I use, and the human cost of their growth and use.
Well, this isn't that.
This is a series of journalistic stories from a small Indian village where cotton production is the main livelihood. We meet cousins who fight over land boundaries, a widow who fights to keep her husband's farm, and growers who struggle to get fair prices for their harvests. It is eye-opening stuff and seemingly well-researched, but this is not a story about cotton. That cotton isn't profitable enough for the farmers is a problem for sure, but the bigger problems come from the struggles of the Indian working class, societal pressures, laws that hurt farmers, the predatory money lenders. These things I don't believe are unique to the cotton growing industry.
This is interesting, just not what I signed up for.
October 11, 2025
Great nonfiction read! Heart breaking the plight of the cotton farmers in India.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews