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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 - 3 of 3 reviews
March 2, 2026
"The Farmer is in charge of his process; he is in charge of fertility. Society takes fertility and uses it. In many societies, the farmer and his [spouse] are suffering. What is the basic requirement of fertility? It is freedom. Women do not want the state to control their fertility. Farmers do not want the state to control their fertility." -Samar Habib, small farmer rep of rural central India.
Habib estimates there have been almost half-a-million Indian farmers, vastly male, who have taken their own lives this century out of shame and despair in not being able to maintain property within an insanely crooked system. Deeply in debt to openly vindictive moneylenders, intentionally abused by the government, and seeing no solution or purpose if they can't provide as a patriarch, husbands and fathers are devoid of help and hope. Mothers are left to pick up the pieces, somehow either making farming land work or muscling into other professions within a patriarchal society. Women are most often left to solo parent their children and tolerate unfair stigmas from the community. It is not uncommon for widows' in-laws to hold them to blame for the deaths of their sons, often offering no support, sometimes disowning or even actively seeking to undermine their former family in cruel ways.
Little to no aid or justice comes for these farmers or their families, and no one cares, as seems to be the hot trend around the world.
This is a challenging and demoralizing read, eye-opening regarding the brutality and injustice within the cotton industry of India and its global reach (yes, very much including the USA). At the same time, the tales of resilience of common folk are truly inspiring, if often hard-to-hear in the suffering they faced. Widows, single mothers, business women, farmers who continue in the trade despite the incredible obstacles: these people, in particular, are amazing. They deserve to be known, and they deserve justice. Thankful Aslany made me more aware.
Habib estimates there have been almost half-a-million Indian farmers, vastly male, who have taken their own lives this century out of shame and despair in not being able to maintain property within an insanely crooked system. Deeply in debt to openly vindictive moneylenders, intentionally abused by the government, and seeing no solution or purpose if they can't provide as a patriarch, husbands and fathers are devoid of help and hope. Mothers are left to pick up the pieces, somehow either making farming land work or muscling into other professions within a patriarchal society. Women are most often left to solo parent their children and tolerate unfair stigmas from the community. It is not uncommon for widows' in-laws to hold them to blame for the deaths of their sons, often offering no support, sometimes disowning or even actively seeking to undermine their former family in cruel ways.
Little to no aid or justice comes for these farmers or their families, and no one cares, as seems to be the hot trend around the world.
This is a challenging and demoralizing read, eye-opening regarding the brutality and injustice within the cotton industry of India and its global reach (yes, very much including the USA). At the same time, the tales of resilience of common folk are truly inspiring, if often hard-to-hear in the suffering they faced. Widows, single mothers, business women, farmers who continue in the trade despite the incredible obstacles: these people, in particular, are amazing. They deserve to be known, and they deserve justice. Thankful Aslany made me more aware.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
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 - 3 of 3 reviews