Farmer suicide in india : It has elaborate & statistical detail about our nations farmer suicide history and remedial measures also.

2.  Agriculture sector has a pivotal role in Indian economy.
 The share of agriculture sector in G.D.P. of India was
44.0% during 1973-74 .
 Agriculture provides the principal means of livelihood for
over 60 percent of India's population.
 In Indian planning agriculture sector ignored except in a
few five years plan.
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3. History
In the 1990s the Govt. officials denied a large number of
suicides, but as more and more information came to light the
government began to accept that farmers in India were under
considerable stress 15% farmers killed themselves and
more than 25000 farmers consumed pesticides and killed
themselves because of a combination of high farming costs
(exorbitantly priced hybrid (so-called high yielding) seeds
and pesticides sold by multinationals and a lack of a good
price for their produce, partly due to imports.
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4. Farmers’ Suicide Statistics
 On an average 38 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.
 1803 women farmers committed suicide in 2012.
 13754 farmers committed suicide in the country in 2012.
 Almost 75 per cent of farmer suicides have occurred amongst the
small and medium farmers.
 Indebtedness was the reason behind the suicide of 93% farmers.
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7. Maharashtra is India’s farm suicide epicentre
Nearly half of all suicides by cultivators in 2014
were in Maharashtra alone, with Telangana following.
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8. The number of suicides went up, not down
 The number of suicides went up, not down
 In 2014, India recorded 12,360 farm suicides. This is
slightly more than the number of farmer suicides registered
in 2013, but in general there is a slow decline in the number
of officially recorded farm suicides.
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New Delhi, Jul 29 Nearly 363 farmers have committed suicide so far in 2016
due to agrarian reasons and the Centre is taking steps to make farming a viable
business to curb such instances in future, Parliament was informed today.
The House was also informed that states take appropriate steps, with agriculture,
including farm indebtedness, being a state subject. However, the Centre supplements
their efforts through appropriate policy measures and budgetary support.
According to data placed by Minister of State for Agriculture,363 farmer suicides have
been reported so far in 2016 due to agrarian reasons.
The minister made it clear that this data have been furnished by states and not by the
National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB). NCRB has published such data till 2014
only. Of the total number of farm suicides, a maximum of 241 have been reported in
Karnataka, followed by Maharashtra (57) and Punjab (56), the data showed. In 2015,
the number of such cases stood at around 107 in Karnataka, 1,841 in Maharashtra and
46 in Punjab, while the overall figure for the entire country was 2,548,
363 farmer suicide cases reported so far in 2016

10. Common Features In Majority Of
Suicides
• 91-94 % of suicides are by family heads.
• 91-97 % of those who committed suicide are males.
• 84 to 89 percent are married.
• 86.5 percent of farmers who took their own lives
were financially indebted.
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indebtedness,
93%, 24%
economic
downfall, 74%,
19%
conflict in family,
55%, 14%
crop failure, 41%,
11%
dent in social
status, 36%, 10%
daughter/sister's
marriage, 34%, 9%
addiction, 28%,
7%
health
promblems, 21%,
6%

12. Drought
• The most immediate
consequence of drought is a
fall in crop production, due to
inadequate and poorly
distributed rainfall.
• Farmers are faced with
harvests that are too small to
both feed their families, fodder
supplies from crop residues to
feed their livestock and fulfill
their other commitments
forcing them to drastic
measures.
 The drastic measures can include
changing jobs or suicides.
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13. Monsoons
 Farmers in India over dependence on
the monsoons.
 There is regular break down in the
meteorological cycle of rainfall,.
 In India, 93% of area fall under dry
land farming, which means totally
dependent on the rainfall as irrigation
systems are scarce, not equally spread
and are not efficient
Sometimes more than normal rains causes flood which also
destroys the crop.
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14. Lack of proper irrigation
 Indian farmers are heavily dependent
on monsoons,. They don’t have any
source for proper irrigation farming.
 Irrigation farming is when crops are
grown with the help of irrigation
systems by supplying water to land
through rivers, reservoirs, tanks,
and wells.
 58% of farmers having committed
suicides had absolutely no
irrigation facilities.
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15. Groundwater
 Due to overdependence on
groundwater for all purposes
domestic or industrial and with
no law against it in India,
ground water table is decreasing
at an alarming rate.
 Many farmers due to lack of
proper irrigation systems, use
tube wells and are now facing
problems due to it.
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16. Lack Of Power Supply
 Many tasks related to
agriculture are power/electric
dependent.
 Costly or no electricity
supply proves to a significant
problem.
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17. Expensive technologies
 New technologies are better but they
come with a big price tags, which are
either too costly to be bought or they
get their money through loans which
again push them into debt.
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18. 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 moneylenders at
the start of the sowing season to
buy seeds and other ingredients.
Farmers' demands were not
taken into count while
preparing the relief package.
Neither were civil society
organizations, local
government bodies, panchayats
etc consulted.
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19. Girl child
• Dowry is still present in
many parts of India.
• Dowry creates
financial pressure on
the family head.
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20. Green revolution
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21. Indebtedness
 Indebtedness was the reason behind the suicide of 93% farmers.
 Out of 17.64 Lakh farmers only (25.3%) farmers could avail
institutional finance in 2005-06.
 Private money lenders charge high interest rates between 48-60%
p.a.
 Higher rate of interest in the cooperative credit system e.g. up to
12.5% to 14% till last year.
 cooperative sector brought down their interest rates to 7%, even then
the farmers are taking loans from the private individuals.
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22. Reasons for indebtedness
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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. Crop failure
There are many different reasons
for crop failure
Late Monsoon
Heavy Monsoon
Pests, Insects
Natural Calamity
Personal Enmity
Climate Change
Drought
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24. others
 Social Status
 Loan Waiver Policy
 Neutral seeds
 Rising Costs of Cultivation
 Uncertainty of agricultural enterprise in India
 Media’s Move
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25. Impact of Suicides
 Suicides leads to loss of sole bread winner in the family.
 Widows burdened with the new responsibility as the sole breadwinner.
 It causes a lot of psychological distress to family.
 There is increased social stigma.
 Impact on children’s education.
 Other family members attempting suicides.
 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.
 Farms are confiscated due to inability to pay back high interest loans.
There is also loss of assets i.e. domestic animals and agriculture implements.
 The families moves from farm labor to permanent labor.
 This also leads to child labor and detoriation of physical health
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26. Preventive Measures
1. Agriculture extension services .
2. Provide financial literacy ( how to use credit, work out on cost-
benefit analysis of investment, risk coping mechanism i.E.,
Insurance – crop & life, increasing savings).
3. Building social systems & strengthening them ( farmer’s groups
exposure to different coping mechanisms, best agriculture
practices).
4. Focus on creating alternate livelihoods.
5. Encourage multiple cropping.
6. Generate awareness on pesticide usage.
7. Provide timely government input subsidy to the farmers.
8. Provide quality of seeds.
9. Government in advance should state the premium price for the
crops.
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27. Rehabilitative Measures
• Counselling can be provided to the farmer’s family
• The families can be helped to gain benefits of various
government schemes.
• Dependent family members can be provided with guidance to
other livelihood alternatives(non farm employment) and
• Seed support, manure, tank silt (red soils) or cost of cultivation
can be provided.
• Interest free loan and free health insurance services are also
required.
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28. 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
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29. What government can do?
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
• Guarantee minimum living incomes to all
farmers
• Promote sustainable agriculture which
reduces cost of cultivation and crop risk
• Comprehensive rainfed agriculture mission
based on diverse cropping systems, protective
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30. What government can do?
Addressing Root Causes (contd)
• Bank credit to all farmers with adequate scale
of finance
• Effective crop insurance to cover all crops
and all farmers
• Inclusion of tenant farmers in all support
systems
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31. What government can do?
• Day-long joint session of
Assembly/Parliament to discuss farmer
suicides and agrarian crisis
• Constitute a Parliamentarians’/MLAs’ Forum
on Agrarian Distress to address the causes of
the crisis
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33. Reference
• Indian today, magazine
• The hindu
• Images from google
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