Farmer Suicides In India

They toiled and they fought through the shame of it Through wilderness, flood, and drought The miseries suffered, unvoiced, unknown And thats how the land was won. Henry LawsonIntroduction Agriculture has always been celebrated as the primary sector in India. India is an agrarian economy, which means, Agriculture is the pre-dominant sector of the Indian economy. True to this, even to this day, inspite of the Indian economy opening out to the world and globalization, close to 70% of the population still depends on agriculture for its livelihood. The secondary and tertiary sectors in India are growing at rapid rates, still a vast majority of Indians continue to depend on agriculture. Every plan for the growth of the

Indian economy aims at agricultural development, which is justified because to achieve the growth rates that the economy aims at, it is important to first address the growth rate of the major sector of the economy. Since the first Five year plan, India's focus has been on agriculture and after 50 years of Five year plans, where does Indian agriculture stand?

Thanks to the Green Revolution, India is now self-sufficient in food production, gone are the days when India had to import even food grains for daily consumption. Indian agriculture has been making technological advancement as well. Today, a visit to the villages will reveal that more and more farmers are adopting mechanization for their farming, there is an overall improvement in the agricultural trends in India.Does that mean everything is looking bright for Indian agriculture? A superficial analysis of the above points would tempt one to say yes, but the truth is far from it. Behind all the growth and development lies the reality that Indian farmers have to extreme poverty and financial crisis driving them to suicides. The year 1997 saw the first few cases of farmers committing suicides, these cases steadily increased over the next decade, peaking in 2001 and reports say that as many as 6000 farmers committed suicide in the last 5 years in the state of Andhra Pradesh alone. The worst cases of farmers committing suicides come from the states of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Maharashtra.

History

In the 1990sIndia woke up to a spate of farmers suicides. One of the major reporters of these suicides was the Rural Affairs Editor ofThe Hindu,P Sainath. The first state where suicides were reported was Maharashtra. Soon newspapers began to report similar occurrences from Andhra Pradesh.In the beginning it was believed that most of the suicides were happening among the cotton growers, especially those fromVidharbha.A look at the figures given out by the State Crime Records Bureau, however, was sufficient to indicate that it was not just the cotton farmer but farmers as a professional category were suffering, irrespective of their holding size.Moreover, it was not just the farmers from Vidarbha but all over Maharashtra who showed a significantly high suicide rate.[The government appointed a number of inquiries to look into the causes of farmers suicide and farm related distress in general. Subsequently Prime MinisterManmohan Singh visited Vidarbha and promised a package of Rs.110 billion (about $2.4 billion) to be spent by the government in Vidarbha. The families of farmers who had committed suicide were also offered anex gratiagrant to the tune of Rs.100,000 (about $2,000) by the government. This figure kept on varying, depending on how much criticism the government was facing from the media and the opposition parties for being uncaring towards the farmers' plight. Such a high figure was ironic considering that the net average income of a family of farmers in this region was approximately Rs.2700 (about $60) per acre per annum. The economic plight of the farmer might be illustrated with the fact that a farmer having as much as 15 acres (61,000m2) of land, and hence considered a well-off farmer, had an income of just a little more than what he would have earned were he to merely get the legal minimum wage for all of the 365 days of the year. Little wonder that despite government efforts at pumping in more money into the suicide belt the suicide epidemic among farmers remained unabated through 2006-07. The problems of the farmers were quite comprehensive. There was little credit available. What was available was very costly. There was no advice on how best to conduct agriculture operations. Income through farming was not enough to meet even the minimum needs of a farming family. Support systems like free health facilities from the government were virtually non-existent. Traditionally support systems in the villages of India had been provided by the government. However, due to a variety of reasons the government had either withdrawn itself from its supportive role or plain simple misgovernance had allowed facilities in the villages to wither away.

Statistics

FarmersinIndia became the centre of considerable concern in the 1990s when the journalist P.Sainath highlighted the large number ofsuicidesamong them. Official reports initially denied the farmer suicides but as more and more information came to light the government began to accept that farmers in India were under considerable stress. On figures there was much debate since the issue was so emotive. More than 17,500 farmers a year killed themselves between 2002 and 2006, according to experts who have analyzed government statistics.Others traced the increase in farmer suicides to the early 1990s.It was said, a comprehensive all-India study is still awaited, that most suicides occurred in states ofAndhra Pradesh, Maharashtra,Karnataka ,KeralaandPunjab. The situation was grim enough to force at least the Maharashtra government to set up a dedicated office to deal with farmers distress.

In 2006, the state ofMaharashta, with 4,453 farmers suicides accounted for over a quarter of the all-India total of 17,060, according to the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB). NCRB also stated that there were at least 16,196 farmers' suicides in India in 2008, bringing the total since 1997 to 199,132 .According to another study by the Bureau, while the number of farm suicides increased since 2001, the number of farmers has fallen, as thousands abandoning agriculture in distress.According to government data, over 5,000 farmers committed suicide in 2005-2009 in Maharashtra, while 1,313 cases w-ere ported by Andhra Pradesh between 2005 and 2007. In Karnataka the number stood at 1,003, since 2005-06 till August 2009. According to NCRB database number of suicides during 2005-2009 in Gujarat 387, Kerala 905, Punjab 75 and Tamil Nadu 26.In April 2009, the state ofChattisgarhreported 1,500 farmers committed suicide due to debt and crop failure.At least 17,368 Indian farmers killed themselves in 2009, the worst figure for farm suicides in six years, according to data of the National Crime Records(NCRB). Causes

To understand the causes, one must analyse the agricultural set up in India. Indian agriculture is predominantly dependant on nature. Irrigation facilities that are currently available, do not cover the entire cultivable land. Any failure of nature, directly affects the fortunes of the farmers. Secondly, Indian agriculture is largely an unorganized sector, there is no systematic planning in cultivation, farmers work on lands of uneconomical sizes, institutional finances are not available and minimum purchase prices of the government do not in reality reach the poorest farmer. Added to this, the cost of agricultural inputs have been steadily rising over the years, farmers' margins of profits have been narrowing because the price rise in inputs is not complemented by an increase in the purchase price of the agricultural produce. Even today, in several parts of the country, agriculture is a seasonal occupation. In many districts, farmers get only one crop per year and for the remaining part of the year, they find it difficult to make both ends meet.

India has witnessed a spate of droughts over the last decade. The worst affected being the farmers of Rayalaseema districts in Andhra Pradesh, it is the cotton farmers in the state of Maharashtra. Nature has repeatedly failed the farmers of these states and owing to lack of facilities to save their crops, these farmers have no means to face the adversities of crop failures. If the farmers are at the mercy of monsoons for timely water for their crops, they are at the mercy of the government for alternative irrigation facilities. The Government cannot be trusted to always act in the interest of the farmers.

The farmers normally resort to borrowing from money lenders, in the absence of institutionalized finance. Where institutional finance is available, the ordinary farmer does not have a chance of availing it because of the "procedures" involved in disbursing the finance. The institutional finance, where available is mostly availed by the medium or large land owners, the small farmers do not even have the awareness of the existence of such facilities. The money lender is the only source of finance to the farmers. Should the crops fail, the farmers fall into a debt trap and crop failures piled up over the years give them no other option other than ending their lives. The input - output ratio, in terms of money invested in agriculture is very meager, primarily because of raising cost of inputs and insufficient support prices from the government.

Agriculture works out profitably where the size of the land is medium to large to benefit from the economies of large scale production. The fact is that majority of the farmers in India own as little as 2 acres of land, cultivation on such small sized lands is not feasible, in many cases, the farmers are not even the owners of the land, which makes profitable cultivation impossible because a significant portion of the earnings go towards the payment of lease for the land. At times, even the middle to large land owners are faced with the difficulties of the vast majority of farmers, however, they are able to atleast realize their investment for each crop.

Repeated crop failures, debt hassles, lack of alternative sources of income, absence of institutional finance have left the farmers with no other solution other than ending their lives. Another disturbing trend has been observed where farmers commit suicide in order to avail relief and benefits announced by the government to support the families of the farmers who have died. This is true in the case of several farmers in Andhra Pradesh who committed suicide so that their families could atleast benefit from the Government's relief programmes.

GM Crops

There have been claims of genetically-modified (GM) seeds (such asBt cotton) being responsible for the farmer suicides.A short documentary byFrontline (U.S. TV series)suggested that farmers using GM seeds promoted byCargillandMonsantohave led to rising debts and forced some into the equivalent of indentured servitude to the moneylenders.

A report released by the International Food Policy Research Institute in October 2009 provided evidence that the introduction ofBtcotton was not a major factor in farmer suicides in India.It argues that the suicides predate the introduction of the cotton in 2002 and has been fairly consistent since 1997.Other studies also suggest the increase in farmer suicides is due to a combination of varioussocio-economicfactors. These include debt, the difficulty of farming semi-arid regions, poor agricultural income, absence of alternative income opportunities, the downturn in the urban economy forcing non-farmers into farming, and the absence of suitable counseling services

Responses to Farmers Suicides

Vidarbhawas in the media for a spate of farmer suicides in recent years ostensibly because of the falling Minimum Support Price for cotton. The problem is complex and root causes include lopsided policies of the World Trade Organisation and developed nations' subsidies to their cotton farmers which make Vidarbha's cotton uncompetitive in world markets. Consequently Vidarbha is plagued by high rates of school drop outs, penniless widows left in the wake of suicides, loan sharks and exploitation of the vulnerable groups. The Indian government had promised to increase the minimum rate for cotton by approximately Rs 100 ($2) but reneged on its promise by reducing the Minimum Support Price further. This resulted in more suicides as farmers were ashamed to default on debt payments to loan sharks. In 2006, 1,044 suicides were reported in Vidarbha alone - that's one suicide every eight hours.

In April 2007 a development consulting group named Green Earth Social Development Consulting produced a report after doing an audit of the state and central government relief packages in Vidarbha.[37][unreliable source?]The report's conclusions were:

Farmers' demands were not taken into account while preparing the relief package. Neither were civil society organisations, local government bodies,panchayats etc. consulted.

The relief packages were mostly amalgamations of existing schemes. Apart from the farmer helpline and the direct financial assistance, there was scarcely anything new being offered. Pumping extra funds into additional schemes shows that no new idea was applied to solve a situation where existing measures had obviously failed. The farmer helpline did not give any substantial help to farmers except in Karnataka.

The basis for selection of beneficiaries under the assistance scheme was not well-defined. Also, type of assistance to be given led to problems like a farmer needing a pair of bullocks getting a pump set and vice versa (or a farmer who has no access to water sources being given pump sets)

Awareness regarding the package was also fairly low.

The report concluded quite alarmingly that the loan burden of the farmersr would double in 2008.

To attract attention a variety of catch phrases were coined such as SEZ or (Farmers) Special Elimination Zone states.

The government set up a dedicated group to deal with farm distress in 2006 known as the Vasantrao Naik Sheti Swavlamban Mission, based inAmravatiA group to study the Farmers Suicides was also constituted by the Government of Karnataka under the Chairmanship of Dr Veeresh, Former Vice Chancellor of Agricultural University and Prof Deshpande as member.

In Popular CultureSummer 2007by producer Atul Pandey, focused on the issue of farmer suicides in Maharashtra'sVidarbharegion, as did the 2009 Bollywood filmKissan.[40]Prior to thisThe Dying Fields, a documentary directed by Fred de Sam Lazaro was aired in August 2007 onWide Angle(TV series).

In 2006, a documentary by Indian film maker Sumit Khanna titledMere Desh Ki Dharti, did a comprehensive review of the way we grow our food. A well researched and in-depth understanding of the agrarian crisis, it won the national award for the best Investigative film.

In 2009, theInternational Museum of Womenincluded an examination of the impact of farmers' suicides on the lives of the farmers' wives and children in their exhibitionEconomica: Women and the Global Economy. Their slideshow "Growing Debt" and accompanying essay by curator Masum Momaya entitled "Money of Her Own" showed how many widows were left with the burden of their husbands' debts, and were forced to work as indentured servants to repay the debt. The widows were also unlikely to remarry, because other men in the community were unwilling to take on the widows' debts for themselves.[41]The 2010, award winning filmJhing Chik Jhingis based around the emotive issue of farmer suicides in Maharashtra. It looks at how the farmer has very little in his control and looks at the impact of indebtedness on his family.[42]

Solutions1. The dependency of agriculture on nature should be reduced. This calls for effective management of water during seasons of good monsoons. Prevention of crop failure should be the primary aim of the Government. In most cases, it is not the lack of water but the lack of proper management on the government's part that causes water shortage. A simple example for this is the recent case of the farmers in the Penna delta of Nellore District of Andhra Pradesh. Inspite of the availability of ample water for a second crop, the Government decided against permitting the second crop, in view of proposed repairs and upgradation to the reservoirs. The proposal would result in draining of precious water into the sea which could be used to the benefit of the farmers. It was only after several agitations by the farmers' organizations that the Government relented and allowed the second crop. Water management should be made more effective through inter- state co-operation on water resources, where surplus water from perennial rivers can be diverted to those regions facing drought, as it is always seen in India, where in state there is severe drought, another state has to face worst floods, such regional imbalances can be managed by effective utilization of water resources throughout the country.

2. Making institutional finance available to every farmer is another important solution to save to the farmers from debt traps of moneylenders. Where institutional finance is available, it should be made easily accessible to the poorest farmers. This calls for removing of elaborate formalities and procedures for obtaining the loans. A poor farmer would be unable to understand the complexities of procedures, he needs a simple solution for his financial needs. Effective monitoring of the disbursed funds is also required because in many cases, the poor farmer is used as a front-end while in fact the benefit of the loan is availed by a bigger land owner. In addition, monitoring is also needed to ensure that the farmers are using the funds for the right purposes.3. Farmers need to be advised and guided on economical methods of cultivation which would save finances for them. The technological advancement in agriculture should be passed down to the small farmers. Where the existing crops would not do well under current drought and weather conditions, the farmers could be helped to shift to the cultivation of crops that would be easy and economical to cultivate in adverse conditions. Agriculture should be approached professionally and not as a traditional occupation.

4. The government could also explore the possibility of pooling of the lands of small farmers and making a bigger chunk of economically cultivable land. Through pooling of lands, the small farmers can avail the economies of cultivating on a larger scale.

5. Small farmers should be encouraged to develop alternative sources of income and the government should take up the responsibility of providing training to the farmers to acquire new skills. In drought affected areas, the Government could start alternative employment generation programmes to reduce the dependency on agriculture as the sole source of income.

6. Provision of relief facilities alone is not sufficient as it has been observed in the case of Andhra Pradesh where farmers committed suicides just to avail the benefits of relief packages. Relief packages should be given as a benefit to farmers to enable them to sustain their livelihood rather than as a relief to families of farmers who commit suicide.

ConclusionsRepeated crop failures, inability to meet the rising cost of cultivation, and indebtedness seem to create a situation that forces farmers to commit suicide. However, not all farmers facing these conditions commit suicide it is only those who seem to have felt that they have exhausted all avenues of securing support have taken their lives.

It is not only the landed who have a crisis of indebtedness to deal with. There were a number of landless families who had leased land on a short-/long-term basis by securing loans.It was also noticed that many landless families managed to acquire money through migration to cities and purchased lands in the late eighties and early nineties.Many such families were caught up in cycles of debt and destitution, which ultimately led to the suicide of the head of the family. Thus, the survivors were reduced to landlessness due to debt. Among those committed included medium and large landowners who were also affected by a high level of un-payable debt.

In the cotton belt, the crop seems to have failed more than once in the last four years. This crop failure has always not been associated with natural calamities, such as failure of rain or un-seasonal rains leading to destruction of crops. The causes are an increase in pest attacks in the last few years, especially from 1995 onwards. This meant that the farmers needed more money to pay for pesticides, though, in the end, a high level of pesticide use did not prevent crop failure.

Longitudinal data available with government sources indicate declining productivity of land. This meant increased use of fertilisers to enhance

productivity of land. Theinformation available indicates that farmers have been spending more on fertilisers even while crop performance has been showing a declining trend. The group discussions and case studies point to the fact that the quantity of use of fertiliser per acre rose in the midnineties and has now reached a saturation point. There appears to be a decrease in the production per acre in the same area.

Most families indicated that they did not have access to extension machinery of the government in giving sound information on how to deal with pests and decliningproductivity of land. The farmers are dependent on agents of fertiliser and pesticide companies for advice on seeds and crop care. The information base of the farmers is, thus, limited to the data provided by the agents and their products. A false perception of prosperity is being created in the minds of the cultivators that prompts them to take serious risks in terms of fertiliser-based cropping pattern.Input costs have also exhibited a sharp rise. Agriculture has become more expensive post-1995. This rise in the input cost is reflected in the electricity bills, rising costs of high yielding variety (HYV) seeds, fertilisers, energy (diesel), transportation, etc. The rising input cost is not matched by the crop yield and price obtained. The minimum support price has not been available to all farmers, particularly the small and marginal farmers. Large landowners have been able to benefit from support price, when the government has occasionally provided such support. The absence of support price has had seriousimplications to the farmers.

Declining opportunities in non-farm employment has further aggravated the crisis. It seems that in areas where suicides have occurred, non-farm options are getting limited.There are also instances where members of families have returned to land after losing work in urban areas or have faced lack of opportunities in the non-farm sector outside the village.

It is a matter of serious concern that non-farm employment opportunities are shrinking in off-farming seasons. Thus, declining non-farm opportunities together with repeated crop failures and indebtedness might have created acute conditions of distress for families in rural areas.In all these areas, there is a noticeable absence of irrigation and sustainable harnessing of water resources. As a result, agriculture is mostly rain dependent (more so in the context of the crisis in groundwater availability for farming). The over dependence of the farmer on the HYV seeds, pesticides and fertiliser-based cropping demands water. It was noticed that there was a noticeable scarcity of water, including groundwater.

The tendency towards commercial (cash) crops increased in the late eighties, and this tendency is not limited to big and medium sized landholders alone. Even the landless and small landholders have been acquiring land on lease for cash crop cultivation. In the absence of credit and other inputs like facilitation and support price, dependence on cash crops may have contributed to the agrarian crisis in the areas. Thus, the life of farmers is governed by loans taken mostly to support farming.

Life histories and case studies conducted for this study reveal that there has been sharp increase in the dependence on loans to enable cultivation. The tendency to take loans increased in the nineties. The farmers took their first loan from banks (banks gave loan only once, with a further loan possible only after repayment of the outstanding loan). The later loans were from private parties to repay the bank loan (default of which would result in attachment of the land or mortgaged house). Even for those with an ability to get loan from the formal sector, access to informal sector loans was indispensable. Thus, over 75% of the farmers had loan commitments to non-formal sources.

Those farmers who faced repeated crop failures accumulated loans beyond their capacity to repay. Thus, most of victims had turned defaulters over the last four years. This points to a serious crisis as reflected in the absence of the support system to bail the farmers out, in the form of relatives, neighbours, banks and even the moneylenders who had stopped giving the loans to them

lately. Many farmers tried to diversify their employment opportunities with new loans. Some had gone in for purchase of tractors in order to rent it out. Medium- and large-sized landholders followed these strategies,but many did not succeed in their efforts, resulting in higher debt burdens.

These are the conditions and the contexts that forced the victims to take the extreme step of suicide. During the course of our discussions with the villagers, which were discovered that the conditions of the others wan not much different and that most of them suffered from the same tensions and problems.