DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Images of thousands of farmers streaming into India’s capital on tractors and carrying banners to decry potentially devastating changes in agricultural policy can seem a world away to Americans. However, the protests in New Delhi raise issues that also resonate in the United States and have led to dramatic change in rural parts of the country. The dispute raises questions not only about agriculture in India but larger issues about the country’s rural areas — issues that are familiar to anyone who has watched as populations dwindle in rural America and many small communities struggle to survive. Some in India worry also about the environmental consequences of shifting toward large-scale farming familiar in the U.S.
