Farmers' suicides in India refers to the event of farmers dying by suicide in India since the 1970s, due to their inability to repay loans mostly taken from private landlords and banks. India being an agrarian country with around 70% of its rural population depending directly or indirectly upon agriculture, the sector had a 15% share in the economy of India in 2023, and according to NSSO, around 45.5% of country's labor force was associated with agriculture in 2022. Activists and scholars have offered several conflicting reasons for farmer suicides, such as anti-farmer laws, high debt burdens, poor government policies, corruption in subsidies, crop failure, mental health, personal issues and family problems.
The National Crime Records Bureau data shows that while 296,438 farmers had died by suicide between 1995 and 2014, in the nine years between 2014 and 2022, the number stood at 100,474. In 2022, a total of 11,290 persons involved in the farming sector (5,207 farmers and 6,083 agricultural labourers) have died by suicide in India, accounting for 6.6% of total suicide victims in the country.
Earlier, governments had reported varying figures, from 5,650 farmer suicides in 2014National Crime Reports Bureau, ADSI Report Annual – 2014 Government of India, p. 242, table 2.11 to the highest number of farmer suicides in 2004 of 18,241. The farmer's suicide rate in India had ranged between 1.4 and 1.8 per 100,000 population, over a 10-year period through 2005. However, the figures in 2017 and 2018 showed an average of more than 10 suicides daily or 5760 suicides per year. There are accusations of states manipulating the data on farmer suicides, hence the real figures could be even higher.
History
Historical records relating to frustration, revolts, and high mortality rates among farmers in India, particularly cash crop farmers, date back to the 19th century.I.J. Catanach (1971), Rural Credit in Western India, 1875-1930, University of California Press, , pp. 10–55 The high land taxes of the 1870s, payable in cash regardless of the effects of frequent famines on farm output or productivity, combined with colonial protection of usury, money lenders, and landowner rights, contributed to widespread penury and frustration among cotton and other farmers, ultimately leading to the Deccan Riots of 1875–1877.
The colonial government enacted the Deccan Agriculturists' Relief Act in 1879, to limit the interest rate charged by money lenders to Deccan cotton farmers, but applied it selectively to areas that served foreign cotton trading interests.Deccan Agriculturists' Relief Act, XVII of 1879 Government Central Press, Bombay (1882)Chaudhary and Swamy (2000), Protecting the Borrower: An Experiment in Colonial India, Yale University Rural mortality rates, in predominantly agrarian areas of colonial India, were very high between 1850 and the 1940s.Mike Davis (2001), Late Victorian Holocausts, El Niño Famines and the Making of the Third World, Verso, , Chapter 1BM Bhatia (1963), Famines in India 1850-1945, Asia Publishing House, London, However, starvation related deaths far exceeded those by suicide, the latter being officially classified under "injuries". The death rate classified under "injuries", in 1897, was 79 per 100,000 people in Central Provinces of India and 37 per 100,000 people in Bombay Presidency.
Ganapathi and Venkoba Rao analyzed suicides in parts of Tamil Nadu in 1966. They recommended that the distribution of agricultural organophosphorus compounds be restricted. Similarly, Nandi et al. in 1979 noted the role of freely available agricultural insecticides in suicides in rural West Bengal and suggested that their availability be regulated. Hegde studied rural suicides in villages of northern Karnataka over 1962 to 1970 and stated the suicide incidence rate to be 5.7 per 100,000 population. Reddy, in 1993, reviewed high rates of farmer suicides in Andhra Pradesh and its relationship to farming size and productivity.
Reporting in the popular press about farmers' suicides in India began in the mid-1990s, particularly by Palagummi Sainath.P., Sainath, Everybody Loves a Good Drought: Stories from India's Poorest Districts, Penguin Books, In the 2000s, the issue gained international attention and a variety of Indian government initiatives.
The National Crime Records Bureau, an office of the Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India, which has been collecting and publishing suicide statistics for India since the 1950s (as annual Accidental Deaths & Suicides in India report) has started separately collecting and publishing farmer's suicide statistics from 1995.J Hardikar, Farmer suicides: Maharastra continues to be worst-affected 10th year in a row DNA India (9 January 2011)
States affected Maharashtra has been the state worst affected by suicides in farming sector with over 60,000 deaths between the period from 1995 to 2013.
According to the National Crime Records Bureau, the states with the highest incidence of farmer suicide in 2022 were Maharashtra (4,248), Karnataka (2,392), Andhra Pradesh (917), and Tamil Nadu (728) and Madhya Pradesh (641). Together, these five states recorded about 80 per cent of total suicides in the farming sector and about 85 per cent of farmers' suicides.
Reasons Various reasons have been offered to explain why farmers die by suicide in India, including floods, drought, debt, use of genetically modified seeds, public health, and use of lower quantity pesticides due to fewer investments producing a decreased yield. There is no consensus on what the main causes might be but studies show suicide victims are motivated by more than one cause, on average three or more causes for dying by suicide, the primary reason being the inability to repay loans. Panagariya, an economist at the World bank states, "farm-related reasons get cited only approximately 25 percent of the time as reasons for suicide" and "studies do consistently show greater debt burden and greater reliance on informal sources of credit" among farmers who die by suicide. Reasons for farmers suicides. (in 2002) Percent (of suicides) Failure of crops 16.84 Other reasons (e.g. chit fund) 15.04 Family problems with spouse, others 13.27 Chronic illness 9.73 Marriage of daughters 5.31 Political affiliation 4.42 Property disputes 2.65 Debt burden 2.65 Price crash 2.65 Borrowing too much (for house construction) 2.65 Losses in non-farm activities 1.77 Failure of bore well 0.88¶Note: Reasons given by close relatives and friends. Every case cited more than one reason.
A study conducted in 2014, found that there are three specific characteristics associated with high-risk farmers: "those that grow cash crops such as coffee and cotton; those with 'marginal' farms of less than one hectare; and those with debts of 300 Rupees or more." The study also found that the Indian states in which these three characteristics are most common had the highest suicide rates and also accounted for "almost 75% of the variability in state-level suicides."New evidence of a suicide epidemic among India's 'marginalised' farmers, © 2014 University of Cambridge.
A 2012 study, did a regional survey on farmers' suicide in rural Vidarbha (Maharashtra) and applied a Smith's Saliency method to qualitatively rank the expressed causes among farming families who had lost someone to suicide.Dongre and Deshmukh, Farmers' suicides in the Vidarbha region of Maharashtra, India: a qualitative exploration of their causes, Journal of Injury and Violence Research, Jan 2012; 4(1): 2–6 The expressed reasons in order of importance behind farmer suicides were – debt, alcohol addiction, environment, low produce prices, stress and family responsibilities, apathy, poor irrigation, increased cost of cultivation, private money lenders, use of chemical fertilizers and crop failure. In other words, debt to stress and family responsibilities were rated as significantly higher than fertilizers and crop failure. In a different study in the same region in 2006, indebtedness (87%) and deterioration in the economic status (74%) were found to be major factors for suicide.Behere and Bhise, Farmers' suicide: Across culture, Indian Journal of Psychiatry, 2009 Oct–Dec; 51(4): 242–243
Studies dated 2004 through 2006, identified several causes for farmers suicide, such as insufficient or risky credit systems, the difficulty of farming semi-arid regions, poor agricultural income, absence of alternative income opportunities, a downturn in the urban economy which forced non-farmers into farming, and the absence of suitable counseling services. In 2004, in response to a request from the All India Biodynamic and Organic Farming Association, the Mumbai High Court required the Tata Institute to produce a report on farmer suicides in Maharashtra, and the institute submitted its report in March 2005.Staff, InfoChange August 2005. Dandekar A, et al, Tata Institute. Causes of Farmer Suicides in Maharashtra: An Enquiry. Final Report Submitted to the Mumbai High Court 15 March 2005 The survey cited "government's lack of interest, the absence of a safety net for farmers and lack of access to information related to agriculture, as the chief causes for the desperate condition of farmers in the state."
An Indian study conducted in 2002, indicated an association between victims engaging in entrepreneurial activities (such as venturing into new crops, cash crops, and following market trends) and their failure in meeting expected goals due to a range of constraints.
Government economic policy Economists like Utsa Patnaik, Jayati Ghosh, and Prabhat Patnaik suggest that structural changes in the macro-economic policy of the Indian Government that favored privatization, liberalization, and globalization are the root cause of farmer suicides. Business economists dispute this view.Ravi Kapoor The myth of farmer suicides Business Standard (27 March 2013)Sidhu, M. S. (2010), Globalisation vis-à-vis Agrarian Crisis in India, Agrarian Crisis and Farmer Suicides (Editors: Deshpande and Arora), , SAGE Publications, Chapter 7
GM crops A number of social activist groups and studies proposed a link between expensive genetically modified crops and farmer suicides. Bt cotton (Bacillus thuringiensis cotton) was claimed to be responsible for farmer suicides.On India's Farms, a Plague of Suicide New York Times (18 September 2006) The Bt cotton seeds cost nearly twice as much as ordinary ones. The higher costs forced many farmers into taking ever larger loans, often from private moneylenders charging exorbitant interest rates (60% a year). The moneylenders force farmers to sell their cotton to them at a price lower than it fetches on the market. According to activists and studies, this created a source of debt and economic stress, ultimately suicides, among farmers. Increasing costs in farming associated with decreasing yields even with use of BT cotton seeds are often quoted cause of distress among farmers in central India. A 2015 study in Environmental Sciences Europe found that farmer suicide rates in India's rainfed areas were "directly related to increases in Bt cotton adoption." Factors leading to suicide included "high costs of BT cotton" and "ecological disruption and crop loss after the introduction of Bt cotton." Other scholars, however, say that this Bt cotton theory made certain assumptions and ignored field reality.