This document discusses farmers' suicide in India. It provides statistics showing that over 296,466 farmer suicides occurred from 2003-2014, with the highest rates in Maharashtra, Karnataka, and Bihar. Common factors for suicide include financial indebtedness, climate change impacts, and being small-scale farmers with low incomes. Major causes identified are bankruptcy (39%), family problems (12%), farming issues (19%), and illness (10%). Preventive measures proposed include agricultural extensions, financial literacy, alternative livelihoods, and various stakeholder roles in support of farmers.

1. Advisor:-
Prof. B. jirli
Dept. of Extension
Education
Speaker:
Rajesh mandavliya
16EXT13
Farmers’ Suicide in India – A Socio Economic Analysis

2. OUTLINE
• Introduction
• General view of farming sector
• Concept of Suicide
• Farmers Suicide in India
• Causes for Farmers’ Suicides
• Preventive measures
• Role of various stakeholders
• Conclusion
2

3. Introduction
• India is land of Agriculture
• Economic prosperity of our country
• Contribution of Agriculture to Indian
Economy (GDP)
• Agriculture is still largest economic sector
• Most tragic part of our country

4. Ground realities
2.65%
31.89%
34.90%
17.14%
9.35%
3.66%
0.41%
0.00%
5.00%
10.00%
15.00%
20.00%
25.00%
30.00%
35.00%
40.00%
<0.01 0.01-0.40 0.41-1.0 1.01-2.0 2.01-4.00 4.01-10.0 >10.00
Percentage of farmers
Percentage of farmers
 Nearly 85 percent of Indian farmers having less than 2 hectares of land.
And average monthly income per household Is Rs.6,426.
Source-http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/more-than-50-of-farm-households-in-debt/article6711414.ece

5. Number of Cultivators, 1951 to 2011
0
20
40
60
80
100
120
140
1951 1961 1981 1991 2001 2011
69.9
99.6
92.5
110.7
127.6
118.6
49.9
52.8
37.8
35.2 31.7
24.6
Number(Million)
percentage
Source: : Registrar General of India, New Delhi, 2011

6. Agricultural Laborers, 1951 to 2011
Source: : Registrar General of India, New Delhi, 2011
0
20
40
60
80
100
120
140
160
1951 1961 1981 1991 2001 2011
27.3 31.5
55.5
74.6
107.5
144.3
19.5 16.7
22.7 23.8 26.7 30
Number(Million)
Percentage

7. Concept of Suicide
Life is a stage with one entrance but many
exits.
Among those, suicide is one exit having a
long ancestry. The word "Suicide" literally
means, "to kill oneself" (Sui-of oneself and
Caedre - to kill).
World Health Organization (1968) defined
suicidal act as "the injury with varying
degrees of lethal intent" and suicide is defined
as “a suicidal act with fatal outcome”.

8. Farmers’ Suicide statistics
• 2,96,466 farmers’ suicides in the country including women from 2003-
2014.
• Nationwide, the farmers’ suicide rate (FSR) was 8.7% per 100,000
farmers in 2013.
• Maharastra(35.6%), Karnataka (18.5%) and Bihar (1.1%)
• 16600 farmers commit suicide every year since one and half decade in
India
• On an average 30 farmers commit suicide everyday in India, one Indian
farmer commits suicide every 32 minutes between 1997 and 2005 and
since 2012, this has become one suicide every 30 minutes.
• Almost 75 percent of farmer suicides have occurred amongst the small
and medium farmers.

10. Number of farmers suicide in India (2003-2015)
All Suicides Farmer Suicides
Year Number Number As % of all Suicides
2003 110851 17164 15.48
2004 113697 18241 16.04
2005 113914 17131 15.04
2006 118112 17060 14.44
2007 112637 16632 13.56
2008 125017 16196 12.00
2009 127151 17368 13.66
2010 134599 15964 11.86
2011 135585 13472 9.94
2012 135445 13754 10.15
2013 134799 11772 8.7
2014 131666 12360 9.4
2015 133623 12602 9.4
NCRB (2015)_

11. Incidence of Age group wise farmers’ Suicides
during - 2015
Sex /
Age
Below 18
years
18 to
below 30
Years
30 Years to
Below 60
Years
60 Years
and above
Total
Male 31 1396 5455 684 7566
Female 11 117 275 38 441
Total 42 1513 5730 722 8007
Percentage
Share(%)
0.5 18.9 71.6 9.0 100.00
Source : NCRB,2015

12. NCRB,2014

13. Table : Percentage share of suicide victims by
education standards during 2013
Sl.
No.
Particulars Percentage
1. Illiterates 18.5
2. Primary 23.6
3. Middle School droup outs 22.1
4. Matriculate/ Secondary 20.5
5. Higher secondary 10.3
6. Diploma 1.2
7. Graduate 3.2
8. Post graduate 0.5
Source : NCRB,GOI 2013

14. Common features in majority of suicides
• 91-94 % of suicides are by family heads.
• 91-97 % of those who committed suicide are males.
• 86.5 percent of farmers who took their own lives were financially
indebted.
• Climate change in India may have "a strong influence" on suicides during
the growing season, triggering more than 59,000 suicides in 30 years.
• 70-75 % farmers who commit suicide are Marginal and small farmers have
monthly income below Rs. 10,000 .

15. Causes Identified for farmers’ Suicide by
the Different Researchers
• Central issue of farmers' suicide was the debt trap (Vidyasagar and
Sunman Chandra, 2004).
• Farmers’ suicides were due to crop failure, non-receipt of expected
price of produce (Vijay Kumar, 2005).
• Suicides were a symbol of protest against the agrarian crisis.
(Assadi 1998, 2005).
• Agrarian crisis as the prime reason for suicides, which was due to
severe droughts, fall in prices and crop loss for any farmer to
borrow heavily (Kumar and Sharma 2005).

16. Continued…
• “It will not be correct to directly relate the spate of farmer’s suicide to
economic problems prevailing in the farming community in isolation and
therefore a combination of issues need to be understood carefully” (Veeresh
,2002).
• Suicides were due to agrarian crisis (Sharma et.al, 2005) .
• Suicides were due to indebtedness (Nagthana and Poddar, 2006.)
• Economic distress leading to indebtedness was the most important causative
factor for farmers’ suicides (Iyer and Manick, 2000) .
• Farmers’ suicides in Maharashtra and identified repeated crop failures,
inability to meet rising cost of cultivation and indebtedness as factors that
force farmers to commit suicide (Mishra, 2006).

17. Major causes of farmers’ suicide

18. Percentage Share of Major Causes of Suicides among
Farmers/Cultivators during 2015
Bankruptcy, 38.7%,
39%
Family problems,
11.7%, 12%
Farming related
problems, 19.0%,
19%
Illness, 10.5%, 10%
Drug or alcohal
addiction, 4.1%, 4%
Other
causes(marriage,
property, Social
evils) 16.3%
Source-NCRB-2015

19. Monsoon
vs
Drought Flooding

20. Misguided policies
• Government only help a fraction of farmers.
• The waiver given by government helps only if the loan has been taken from a
government-backed institution, but most farmers in India borrow from money lenders at
the start of the sowing season to buy seeds and other ingredients.
• Report of National Commission for Farmers (NCF) had recommended that MSP should
be at least 50% more than the average cost of production. However, this had not been
accepted by any state or by central Government.
• Farmers' demands were not taken into count while preparing the relief package. Neither
were civil society organizations, local government bodies, panchayats etc .are consulted.
• For the last five years allocations on agriculture have seen no big changes, staying within
2.1 to 2.25 percent of the total union budget and below 0.3 percent of the GDP. The
allocation of Rs 51,026 crore in Budget 2017-18 represents 2.3 percent of the total union
budget and also fall within 0.3 percent of GDP –showing no significant increase

21. Farmers having Institutional access and land holding
0.00%
10.00%
20.00%
30.00%
40.00%
50.00%
60.00%
70.00%
80.00%
<0.01 0.01-0.40 .41-1.0 1.01-2.0 2.01-4.00 4.01-
10.00
>10.00
Farmerswithaccesstoinstitutionalcredit(In%)
Land possessed in hectare

22. Reasons for indebtedness
Indebtedness
Increasing cost of
agriculture inputs
Repeated crop loss
Increasing
dependence on
money lenders at high
rates of interest.
Withdrawal of
government support
Reduced price of
agriculture produces

23. What happens to the families after
a family head commits suicide …..??
• Harassment of the family by corrupt moneylenders.
• Widows burdened with the new responsibility as the sole
breadwinner.
• Children sometimes lose both parents to suicide. Forcing their
education to a halt, especially if they have to work in order to
provide for their needs.
• The impact of suicide by the bread earner is experienced by all
members of the family .
• The act of suicide is over for the person who dies, but survivors are
left with many questions.

24. Preventive Measures
1. Agriculture extension services.
2. financial literacy ( How to use credit card , workout on cost-benefit analysis of
investment, risk coping mechanism i.e., Insurance – crop & life , Increasing
savings.)
3. Building social systems & strengthening them.(farmers group exposure to
different coping mechanisms, Best agricultural practices.)
4. Focus on creating alternative livelihood.
5. Encourage multiple cropping system.
6. Generate awareness on pesticide and fertilizer usage.
7. Provide timely government input subsidy to the farmers.

25. Role of Different stakeholders
family
Media
Financial sector
Universities

26. Role of Farmers
• Farmers need to adopt IFS which helps them to earn better
and stable income.
• Farmers should practice timely repayment of loans instead
of over burdening with heavy or large amount of loans.
• He should adopt alternative crop along with commercial
crops.
• Must engage in diversified farming rather then Specialized.

27. Role of Farm Universities
• Strengthening outreaching activities of universities to transfer
the efficient technologies directly to farmers & to transfer
farmers friendly technology.
• University should propagate alternative crop plan along with
the commercial crops.
• University should publicize the adoption of LEISA and LEIA
through success stories.
• Should arrange time to time camapign , farmers fair and
training programmes

28. Role of Media
• Broadcasting of programs related to farming sector through
radio and television to bring awareness among farming
community.
• Farmer should be aware of the ill effects of suicide.
• The media should publicize those success stories in which
the farmers in spite of various physical , mental and
financial stress have succeeded in the farming in an
exemplary way.
• Provide more coverage to farming sector, and support
farmers by publishing farming relevant information.

29. Role of Financial Sector
• Financial sector must ensure to more and more farmers
inclusion in institutional agencies to ensure their easy access
for loan.
• The bank should not exploit the farmers in the name of
recovery of loans.
• Practice of recovery should not harm the self respect of the
farmers.
• The loan recovery process should not be done in the public.
• In the process of loan recovery the decent and soft language
used and not unparliamentary words.

30. Role of Family members
• The family members should critically observe and analyze the causes
of the depression.
• The mental conditions of the farmer should be observed and there
should not be any provoking behavior of the family members.
• If a person found suspicious regarding suicide he should be brought
into the social groups mingle with each others.
• The person should be encouraging religious and social activities.
• The person should have recognizable role in all the event functions
organized by the family.
• The family members should encourage the farmers to express
themselves freely there by lowering their stress.

31. What government can do..?
Immediate Measures:-
• Immediate compensation for crop failure.
• Remunerative prices, direct procurement from
farmers.
• Modify export/import policies and tariffs in favour
of Indian farmers.
• Provide ex-gratia and loan repayment support for
all families of farmer suicides in time-bound
manner.

32. Addressing Root Causes
• Price Compensation system for all food crops: when MSPs or
market prices are less than Target Price (Cost of Cultivation +
50%), the difference should be paid directly to farmers.
(Presently the The state government of Madhya Pradesh has launched a new
scheme named as “Bhavantar Bhugtan Yojana” (Price Deficit Financing
Scheme) to hedge price risks in agriculture sector. The objective of the
scheme is to provide the compensation for agriculture products whenever
its price fall below the announced minimum support prices (MSP) by the
central government.)
• Guarantee minimum living incomes to all farmers.
• Promote sustainable agriculture which reduces cost of
cultivation and crop risk.
• mission based on diverse cropping systems, protective
irrigation and livestock systems.
Contd…..

33. • Effective crop insurance to cover all crops and all farmers. Like-
PMFBY
• A March 28 reply in Lok Sabha estimated annual farm wastage to
be around Rs 96,000 crore. In case of cereals, the loss was 4.5% of
the total produce and in case of guava 15.88%. In western countries,
the loss is less than two per cent.
• Increase the extension activity in rural areas to increase the
awareness about govt. initiatives , to provide agro advisory services,
and time bound information of marketing sector.
• Farmers should be exempted from payment of interest on crops
loans, an increase in the crop loan repayment limit from .6 months to
one year for crops like Sugarcane , Cotton etc.
• Exempted from penalty for the non payment of Electricity bill.
Contd…..

34. Conclusion
• Comprehensive Agrarian policy is needed.
• All India Level Expert Committee.
• Inclusion of farmers representative in policy making.
The Needs
of the
Farmer
Agro
Advisory
Quality Inputs
Timely
Finance
Agri
Insurance
Post
Harvest
Services
Agri
Marketing

35. Reference……..
• http://www.hindustantimes.com/india/116-farmers-committed-
suicide-in-2016-10-states-reeling-under-drought/story-
mi8vmvvZOFwoB2gdKYy8jN.html
• https://psainath.org/over-2000-fewer-farmers-every-day/
• http://indianexpress.com/article/india/maharashtra-reports-855-
farmer-suicides-in-april-jan-this-year-govt-4782655/
• https://www.actionaidindia.org/blog/agriculture-in-budget-
2017-radical-change-in-approach-needed/
• http://ncrb.nic.in/

36. THANK YOU…….36