Karna, a farmer from Badgaon village in northern India, has few options but to sell his blood for money, after persistent drought left him unable to live off his land.

Blood, the new cash crop

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The farmer, now 60, began commuting an hour and a half from his village to Jhansi town in Uttar Pradesh for a job that paid little money.

"I was working as a labourer in Jhansi for survival," said Karna, who goes by one name. "When my son fell ill, I had no other option but to sell my blood for his treatment." The hospital took almost two bottles of his blood and gave him 1,200 rupees ($17.50). For many farmers in this part of Bundelkhand, blood is the new cash crop — a source of guaranteed income as they exhaust other ways of making ends meet.

Bundelkhand, a victim of extreme weather

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Bundelkhand, a hilly region divided between Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh, has struggled with extreme weather in the past few years.

Drought, hailstorms, unseasonal rainfall and most recently an unusually warm winter have played havoc with crop yields, making farming unviable for many. Unemployment has soared, and locals are leaving the rural belt to work as unskilled labour in nearby urban areas. Financial assistance provided by the authorities has failed to achieve much on the ground, as it is far lower than farmers' losses.

"I could not find any work for almost five days," he said. "What should I do? I had to feed my children."

Rajendra Singh, a prominent water conservationist and winner of the Stockholm Water Prize, said it was "a matter of grave concern that farmers from many areas in Bundelkhand (have) sold their blood due to successive droughts". The freak winter badly affected the rabi crop, sown during the winter months, on around 40 percent of India's farmland.

Two suicides per day

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The negative effects have pushed some farmers to commit suicide, even as state governments scramble to ease the agrarian crisis.

More than 3,200 farmers in Bundelkhand alone have killed themselves in the last five years, according to official records. Crop losses and worries over debt are the main reasons. "Farming is a curse in Bundelkhand,"

A local said tearfully. "No one cares for us — we will die one day in the absence of any help from the government."

Locals are also surviving on rotis eaten with salt. The dinner menu is salt and rice, Shyama, a local here told CNN-IBN.

An expecting mother to her third child, her husband has left the region to move to Kota looking for work. Despite a change in government, the social welfare reforms promised by the Modi government haven't reached Bundelkhand.

This has been the situation for the last 3-4 years," says Shyama. Chunni Bai adds, "We will have salt and chapati in the night. It will be the same tomorrow. It has been like this for 5 years.

"There is very little to eat. Gram crop has failed. There is no work. I worked for 10-15 days on a road project but have not yet been paid for the same," says Shyama.