Agrarian crisis and farmers suicides: an empirical study of endemic states – issues and concerns

Significant agrarian changes occurred in the last seven decades of development in the country, which have brought some externalities along with them. The ecological, economic and social costs the country is bearing as a result of indiscriminate use of chemical inputs in soils, financial exclusion, individualization and marginalization of farmers alienated from society as well as institutions, are the mark of these externalities. While these issues are common to all third world countries, why the farmers in this country are bogged down and committing the extreme step of suicides, a phenomenon which is not seen elsewhere is perplexing to the development policy makers. However, given the vast nature of agriculture sector in the country, a holistic perspective of agrarian distress will be provided if only, all the systems influencing this sector will be understood in total. The study is an attempt in this direction. Four States were selected for the study i.e., Maharashtra, Telangana, Karnataka and Madhya Pradesh based on maximum number of suicides occurred in these states during 2014-15 (As per NCRB Data). Two districts within each State with maximum number of suicides and with variation in cropping pattern with respect to irrigated and rainfed areas, were selected. Around 138 villages were covered for a sample of 200 households with farmer suicides and 200 control households. Primary data from sample households was collected during 2017-18. All the four selected states i.e, Maharashtra, Telangana, Karnataka and MP are the States with agriculture sector contributing 20-29 percent of Total State Domestic Product i.e, more than the national average of 14.5 percent and the states with good growth rate in agriculture sector with around 4 percent on an average. The similarities with respect to agriculture distress in these states were cropping pattern dominated by cash crops like cotton, sugarcane and soybean, high incidence of indebtedness and high private investment under tube wells. Maximum sown area of the FS households was registered under cotton with 66.2, 55.3 and 56.5 percent of Gross Sown Area (GSA) in case of Maharashtra, Telangana and Karnataka respectively. However, the dissimilarities of distress were more compared to similarities so that it is difficult to draw a one to one correspondence between the agrarian distress and corresponding farmer’s suicides at state level.