Increased suicide of farmers and the Way Forward: A case study of India
Abstract
Agriculture is the major source of income for individuals in India and the backbone of India’s economy. One of the problems that plagues the agriculture industry is the suicide rate of farmers in India which has risen over the past few years. This needs to be seen as a major problem in India that requires immediate attention from the government. This research paper delves into the reasons for the increase in suicides by farmers by looking at the causes in different states of India, both at the micro and macro level. The research will explore how the government can lower the suicides of farmers in India and in the long term prevent such unfortunate events from taking place. The main findings of this research indicate that indebtedness is one of the major cause for the suicide of farmers in India emanating from lack of government interest in improving the welfare of farmers, negative impact of the pandemic , the nature of cash crops, availibilty of low cost loans, increased consumption as income declines, water crisis, and finally, the agricultural sector vs employment and GDP.
1. Introduction
“One of the observations frequently made about Indian planning is that it has not given adequately high priority to agriculture and that is responsible for most of the problems with which the economy is beset” (Raj 1975).
This quote underlines the fact that although India is an agrarian economy and almost 70% of the population of the country depends upon agriculture, either directly or indirectly, not due attention has been given to the agricultural sector in the country. This has caused agrarian distress in India and led to increased suicide of farmers. The suicides committed by the farmers are not considered to be a phenomenon by themselves but they are an outburst of the agrarian crisis which have prevailed in India for years. Lack of empathy and policies by the government towards the farmers results in ‘passive protests’ by the Indian farmers in the form of suicide.
According to Nagraj (2008), in India suicide was committed by 166,304 farmers from the year 1995 to 2006. Also, the census data of 2001 explains that if we compare the general suicide rate with the agricultural suicide rate we find a higher rate in the agricultural sector. In 2006, 14% of the total suicides were done by farmers (general number of suicides was 118,112 whereas, the suicide by farmers was 17,060). Clearly, the number of suicides committed by the farmers is much higher in the agricultural sector, and hence, this shows the emotional, physical and financial stress faced by this group of the society.
In this paper, I will explore the main reasons for increased suicide amongst farmers, and suggest recommendations to the government with the way forward for lowering the increased suicides in the country.This paper will begin with establishing the significance of the research explaining why it is so important to study this area, then talking about the methodology which explains the methods I will be using to conduct this research. Then discussing the literature review about the previous research which has been conducted by different scholars on this area and substantiating the main argument that indebtedness is the main cause of farmers suicides. Next, there will be a discussion section that will explain the different reasons which contribute to the increased suicides of the farmers and hence, including both micro and macro-level factors. Finally, I will move towards the conclusion and the way forward section which will help in laying out the recommendations for reducing the suicides amongst the farmers and also summarizing the findings of this research to help in improving the overall condition of the farmers in India and hence, leading to prosperity in India.
1a. Significance of the Research Topic
The area of the increasing suicide rate of the farmers is very important on different levels such as economic, social, and political because almost two-thirds of India’s population relies for their living upon the agricultural sector (GoI 2005). When the farmers passively protest by committing suicides then their families are left with great debts as they do not have any other source of income, and hence, this vicious cycle of committing suicides continues. The Government of India has dealt very poorly with this very significant issue both in terms of reducing the rate of suicides of the farmers and helping out the victims’ families. Hence, this makes it very important to research the reasons for the increased suicides of the farmers and the way forward for this significant issue in India.
The suicides committed by the farmers in India show the inequality driven by caste amongst the citizens of the country i.e., belonging to the lower castes of India means that you are not financially strong and hence would ultimately need to commit suicide if survival becomes difficult and you are unable to meet the basic necessities of life. However, this caste system is not something new to the Indians as their most authoritative book Manusmriti “acknowledges and justifies the caste system as the basis of order and regularity of society” (What is India’s caste system? 2021). Therefore, something must be done about this in order to correct this. Also, according to Gyanmudra (2007), the two major reasons leading to the suicides of the farmers are crop failure and indebtedness of the farmers. This shows that the lingering effects of the caste system in the country is also leading to a significant problem and hence, this is a critical issue because those belonging to a certain caste do not get the attention or the support that they require as citizens of a country through the press media, social media or most importantly the government. Hence, most of the issues raised by the farmers from the lower castes are never given enough assistance nor they are highlighted so I want to bring this issue to attention.
Finally, it is important to study the increasing suicides by the Indian farmers because it shows what increasing globalization has done to developing countries like India where the farmers who use outdated technology and resources cannot compete with the cheap prices offered by the developed countries and hence the farmers do not make profits instead they make losses which then leads to agrarian crisis. This shows that increased investment is required in the agricultural sector. According to Gruère et al., (2011), capitalism has been brought to developing countries like India where prices of the inputs have risen due to privatization and the output prices have lowered. Hence, leaving a negative impact on the agricultural sector. Thus, bringing such an issue on an international scale is very important especially for the proponents of globalization who think globalization is supporting the developing countries.
1b. Methodology
To carry out the research on this area, I will be primarily making use of secondary research. The method of my research will include case studies from different provinces of India, analysis of the data from different sources which talk about the suicides in India, and finally, also making use of the field studies to support my research. Moreover, I will be looking at both micro and macro levels statistics to find out about my research question(s).
2. Competing approaches to farmers suicides
As part of my research I want to study the causes for the suicides of farmers in India. In order to address this, I must first define suicide and then explore existing arguments about the causes for the suicides in general and of farmers in India in order to establish the importance and scope of this topic. Finally, I will explain the reasons for the current protests of farmers in India and then these will help in explaining why the problem of the suicide of farmers persists in India.
In order to investigate the research question, I will be taking into account different literature areas, namely defining suicide, suicides in primary sectory, indebtedness as the major reason for the suicide of farmers in India and current protests of farmers in India.
2.1 key terms: Defining Suicide
Suicide is defined as the “act of taking one’s own life” (Defining Suicide 2021). It is the final act which one performs and many risk factors are involved to it such as genetic, biological, environmental, etc. Durkheim (1896) studied suicides in-depth and explained two types of suicides amongst people in our modern societies 1) egoistical suicide 2) anomic suicide.
Some individuals committ egoistical suicide because individuals get detached from other people in the society due to lower integrations with other people. This lower integration is due to different reasons such as being childless etc and hence, turns out to be a contributing factor for suicides. On the other hand, some individuals commit anomic suicide when they achieve something below their expectations or not up to their expectations. It is anomic suicide that is mainly committed by the farmers because at times they do not get the profits, produce etc up to their expectations, and hence, when their expectations are not met so they commit suicide.
2.2 Suicides in the Primary sector
Nishimura et.al., (2003), reviewed the correlation between the Japanese suicide rates and the sector in which the individuals worked in i.e., primary, secondary and tertiary sectors. The primary sector includes the individuals who work in the agriculture sector, fishing, mining, hunting, etc; the secondary sector includes the individuals who work in the glass industry, construction industry, etc; and finally, the tertiary sector includes the individuals who provide services such as cooking, teaching, driving, etc. The analysis was conducted by the researchers and through panel regression analysis they found out that there is a direct correlation between employment in the primary sector and the suicide rates. This finding can also be applied to the case of India where one farmer commits suicide every thirty minutes (Pentland 2021). I agree with the aforementioned findings because I believe people working in the primary sector are very vulnerable as compared to people working in any other sector because they lack competitive skills, education, finances, support etc.
2.3 Indebtedness as the major reason for the suicide of farmers in India
If we look specifically at the case of Indian farmers then we can use the studies of Pavuluri (2013), Posani (2009), Saritha (2015), and Vasavi (2005) who explained the root cause for the suicide of farmers in India. Although they all conducted their studies using different methods and looked at different states of India as well all of them reached a similar conclusion for the primary reason of increased suicide of farmers in India.
According to Pavuluri (2013) farmers do not normally have enough money so they usually buy chemical products on either loan through different channels or credit from lenders on very high interest rates. Normally the lenders and banks give the loan or credit for a fixed period after which it needs to be repaid but when the output is not as desired or if the crop fails then the farmers become stressed and frightened of how they will pay back to the lenders to whom they are answerable. Hence, as a last resort, the farmers commit suicide to run away from their social and economic problems.
Posani (2009) explains that the major reasons why many farmers commit suicide are the desperation and indebtedness in them. These two reasons are very significant and are evident in the majority of the suicide cases of farmers. Also, there have been other factors that are causing increased suicides amongst the farmers such as, high prices of the inputs, increased losses and lack of profitability, etc. I agree with Posani because indebtedness cannot be the only factor which could push farmers to commit suicides instead there are many other underlying factors.
Saritha (2015) explains that the major reason for the suicide of farmers is indebtedness and from 1997 to 2007 about one farmer in India commits suicide every half thirty minutes. This shows that farmers are in great distress in India. However, I believe there should be other factors as well other than indebtedness which I will be exploring in my study.
Vasavi (2005) paid attention to the area of suicides of farmers in India due to the increased usage of commercial crops. In order to pay for the crops, the farmers need to get loans and they are mainly able to get loans from non-financial institutions and their friends and families. However, they need to pay huge sums of interest on the loans they take and if they are not able to pay back then they have to face societal pressure as well i.e., they would need to pay humiliation and ridicule from their kith and kins. It is highlighted by many studies that many individuals commit suicide due to such ridicule and fear of losing their assets in order to pay back to the lenders.I believe that this study will be very helpful for my research as it shows that although indebtedness is important but there are many other factors attached to it as the leading factors and the consequences which must be taken into account.
From all the above researches noted above it can be concluded that increased indebtedness is the major reason for sufferings amongst the farmers which then leads to suicides of farmers in India. However this raises the question that since many scholars have already understood indebtedness as being the major reason for the high suicide rates of farmers so why the government has not been successful in reducing the number of suicides in India. Therefore, we will next analyze the current protests of farmers in India to better understand the efforts of the government and concerns of the farmers and how they feed into the problem that currently India faces. As part of this we will also look at the factors other than indebtedness which are contributing to the suicides of farmers in India.
2.4 Current protests of farmers in India
As we have looked at the scholarly literature review and found out the primary contributing factor for the suicide of farmers in India so now we will look at the current situation of farmers in India to see what the government has been doing to facilitate the farmers and are the government policies effective.
In the 1960s a very supportive policy named the ‘Green revolution’ was introduced by the Government of India in order to put the farmers in the spotlight who were for years ignored. In this system, subsidies were given to the Indian farmers. Subsidies are defined as, “direct or indirect payment to individuals or firms, usually in the form of a cash payment from the government …can be used to offset market failures and externalities in order to achieve greater economic efficiency” (Subsidy Definition 2021). The government helped the farmers by paying for their irrigation and chemicals and this then led to improving and increasing the crop yield of the Indian farmers.
However, since the introduction of the ‘Green Revolution’, none of the progressive and supportive policies have been introduced for the agricultural sector which have actually helped the farmers and thus this has then made the agricultural sector of India stagnated. As a result, this led to the outbreak of farmer’s suicide epidemic in India. In order to help bring an end to this epidemic by supporting the farmers, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government introduced three agriculture laws in September 2020. The three laws are namely:
- Farmers Agreement on Price Assurance and Farm Services Act
- Farmers’ Produce Trade and Commerce Act
- Essential Commodities Act
Firstly, according to the Farmers Agreement on Price Assurance and Farm Services Act, the farmers have the authority to freely market their output, and hence, this engagement with exporters, wholesalers, and retailers would allow a transparent process for contracting to farm as well. Secondly, according to the Farmers’ Produce Trade and Commerce Act, farmers would get an option to sell their output outside the premise of Agriculture Produce Market Committees (APMCs). In addition, since they would be selling independently to any trader of their wish who is a license holder, therefore no mandi tax will be levied upon the farmers by the government. Finally, according to the Essential Commodities Act, certain goods such as pulses, onions, etc have been named as non-essential commodities, and hence, those can be traded freely until there is some crisis and some regulations are required to be placed by the government of India (Analysis 2021).
However, many farmers believe that the aforementioned laws are only introduced to support the big investors and sellers whereas, the conditions of the poor farmers would worsen as they would even lose the support which was given to them in the 1960s. Hence, I believe lack of trust amongst the farmers and similarly, lack of sincerity amongst the government led to the start of the ongoing protests which started in November 2020.
3. Scope of this Research Topic
Taking into consideration the literature above the scope of this research will be as follows:
- Understanding the major reasons behind the increased suicide of farmers
- Suggest policies which can be utilized by the Government of India for reducing the number of suicides committed by the farmers in India
4. Main Reasons for Increased Suicide of Farmers
4.1 COVID-19 impact: Increased Indebtedness and lack of labor availability
The outbreak Covid-19 pandemic has had a disastrous impact on the lives of many individuals around the world. It has affected both their mental health and physical health. Moreover, the people belonging to the marginalized groups have seen the worsening effects more than ever especially, the farmers in India. Covid-19 has contributed to the surge in the cases of farmers’ suicide in India for a number of reasons but mainly because the farmers are unable to pay back their debts which they have taken from banks or other individuals. They are not able to repay those because the labor is not readily available during the lockdown and hence, increased mental pressure pushes them to adopt the last resort which is of committing suicide.
I will now explain a case of a farmer in Uttar Pradesh, India to provide an insight into the reasons for committing suicide during this pandemic. There was farmer named Rajkaran Shukla and he committed suicide in his own field by hanging himself (The Telegraph 2020). This suicide got under the limelight after it got covered in the media and hence, the farmers kith and kins elaborated on the conditions that led to his suicide. They told that Rajkaran had grown crops in 4 acres of land but due to waterlogging he lost 2 acres of crop in his land. However, similar waterlogging was predicted in his other 2 acres of land as well. This meant that he would lose crops over there as well. He tried to act fast and save the other two acres of land by getting the harvesting done but he was not able to find the labor amidst this covid-19 pandemic lockdown. This was quite stressful for him because this not only meant that he would lose his produce but this also meant that he would not be able to pay back to the lender from whom he had borrowed an amount of 1.5 lacs (Farmer suicide tied to harvest 2021).
This case of Rajkaran Shukla is very insightful as we can see that this farmer was not worried about his health when most of the elites could not think of any other thing apart from saving their lives in this pandemic (Mamun and Griffiths 2020). Instead, Rajkaran was mentally stressed about how he would manage to pay back his loan and afford to live after losing his crops. As a result, this unbearable amount of stress made him commit suicide. (The Telegraph 2020).
4.2 Introducing cash crops
The government encourages and to some extent leaves farmers with no choice but to make use of cash crops. Cash crops are more expensive than food crops because they need to be exported in India. However, many scholars believe that the increased usage of cash crops is problematic. For example, according to Mishra (2006) when the farmers use cash crops then they have more at risk as compared to food crops because they need to make a big investment in their crops. Hence, this makes it highly likely that the farmers would get indebted if their crops fail. Examples of cash crops and issues associated with them are discussed below:
4.21 BT Cotton
The introduction of BT cotton crops is not very sustainable due to irrigation facilities used in India which are poor and counterfeit seeds are supplied in the markets. Fake crops are not easily detectable and are only detected once sown and they end up not yielding. This turns out to be very stressful for the farmers because the farmers have already borne the input cost and then their crops do not blossom in the expected way as they are not resistant to bollworm etc. If they are not resistant to the bollworm then it means that they can be easily damaged by the bollworms.This puts farmers in great distress as they are left to bear losses and in addition, they do not get the expected returns on their input (Deshpande 2002).
4.3 Loans
There has been a sharp decline in the number of loans that were given by banks to the farmers or in other words the agricultural sector since 1989 (Sadanandan 2014). The number of bank loans decreased by almost 10% every decade. It is important to note that when formal institutions like banks reduce the percentage of loans given by them to the farmers so they have to resort to private lenders then. However, private lenders are not like formal institutions and therefore, due to lack of check and balance they end up charging high-interest rates from the farmers (Kennedy and King 2014). Hence, farmers being in huge debts after borrowing money from the informal lenders has a direct correlation with the suicide of farmers.
4.4 Increased consumption as compared to income
Table 1 (monthly per capita income and consumption by size-class of holdings) and figure 1 (monthly income and consumption of farm households by the size of holdings) below shows the data on a national level. They show that there is an erosion of the real income by farmers because the consumption of the farmers is higher as compared to their incomes as the prices for the consumption goods are much higher than agricultural goods (Mishara 2007). Hence, this can lead to many farmers committing suicide because they would not be able to meet their consumption needs and even those who would be able to meet the basic needs would have a relatively low standard of living as compared to individuals working in the secondary or tertiary sector.
4.5 Water Crisis
Water is an essential input for the growth of the crops and if there are water shortages in a state then it means that the production would either be halted or the crops would fail in the state. For example, as seen in figure 2 below Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh have the highest number of suicides committed by farmers. The number of suicides committed by the farmers in these states is the highest because it is a highly water deficient region. A school teacher named Sitabai Gaikwad who belonged to a village in Maharashtra state said, “There’s no water for humans. There’s no water for animals. There’s no water for trees … it hasn’t rained” and to add to that he said, “People buy water according to their finances … But that is difficult because it costs us 900 rupees ($13) for a month. When we don’t have money to feed ourselves when we don’t have food and water, how can we pay that much for water?”(Inside India’s water crisis: Living with drought and dry taps 2021). This shows that in regions where water is so scarce that individuals hardly buy it to meet their own needs then in those regions crops cannot thrive because farmers can’t afford to water their crops artificially. Thus, in the case of failed crops, if it does not rain at all, then the farmers ultimately decide to commit suicide.
Source: National Crime Record Bureau of India.
4.6 Agricultural sector vs Employment and GDP
It can be seen from figure 3 below that from 1972 until 2005 the share of agriculture in GDP has continued to fall from 41% in 1972–1973 to 20.2% in 2004–2005. The share of agricultural employment has also decreased from 73.9% in 1972–2973 to 56.5% in 2004–2005. This shows that both the GDP and employment has fallen ever since and that is mainly due to two reasons which are also highlighted in the figure 3 that the productivity of the workers in the agriculture sector is lower as compared to the non-agricultural sector and the government of India has given low attention to the agriculture sector ever since. Although the falling share of the primary sector in the employment and GDP of the country is consistent with the economic development theory, nevertheless it is very important to have growth in this agricultural sector as well because it can lead to increasing incomes, job creation, making sure that the provision of food is made and most importantly, preventing suicides of farmers. Moreover, it is important to note that for measuring the development the major factor is productivity and if productivity increases then it means the development is also increasing as they both are directly correlated (Timmer 1988). Hence, we must work towards ensuring that productivity increases.
5. Conclusion
We have seen that the major reason why farmers commit suicide is indebtedness and this also conforms with the previous scholarly work done on this area. However, indebtedness has been complemented by other factors including covid-19, introduction of cash crops, water crisis, expenditure of farmers being greater than income, and share of agriculture in GDP and employment. As a result, the government of India must work to protect its agricultural sector as it can also be seen from the covid-19 pandemic that farmers have played a huge role in ensuring food security in the country and then just like how we consider medical workers as our heroes we must consider farmers as our heroes as well.
There have been many policies introduced in the past for the relief of the farmers i.e., relief packages in 2006, the debt waiver and relief scheme for the farmers in 2008, and a program initiated by the government in 2013 for expanding out the income packages, etc. However, despite these efforts by the government in order to relieve the farmers, the increased rate of suicides committed by the farmers continues. Therefore, the government must look at this area with scrutiny and try to find ways and introduce policies for bringing an end to or at least reduce the suicides committed by the farmers because the farmer’s suicide issue in India is a very serious one. Now is the right time for the government of India to acknowledge the farmer’s suicide issues sensitivity and re-evaluate the steps currently being taken by the government and those taken in the past.
Some of the immediate policies which the government can introduce to protect the farmers and improve their conditions are as follow:
- Organic farming
- Lower the cost of fertilizers
- Loans from the financial institutions should be given
- Introduction of subsides
- Insurance of the crops
- Educating the farmers about the usage of fertilizers, pesticides, cash crops, and BT crops, etc.
- Effective implementation of the government policies should be ensured
- Usage of “supplemental irrigation and water harvestings techniques, such as rain catchment systems and weirs or sand dams” (Water Scarcity and Agriculture 2021) in water scare states like Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh etc
- Agricultural tools should be digitized
6. Future Work
The suicides of farmers in India is not just a country level problem but instead it has become a global issue for farming because India is one of the the most important producers of the food in the world. These farmers help in feeding hundred thousands of people around the world but they themselves are in the poverty trap and need support from the government and the society in general. Therefore, in my opinion the next step would be to pick up on promoting organic farming as a substitute to the current farming practices in India and explore it as a suitable way for the farmers to end these passive protests in the form of ‘suicides’. Organic farming is both sustainable and cheap because neither it damages the environment by the usage of artificial chemicals nor does it put farmers under financial stress of buying artificial fertilizers, pesticides etc. However, this should be looked at in detail as it would involve some upfront investment on the part of the government because farmers would have to be educated on organic farming.
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