Why farmers in India commit suicides?

Indian Agriculture And Indian Farmer

India is highly dependent on agriculture. The agriculture sector covers 70% of the population. But farmer’s suicide has been a big issue for the country for the past two decades. Although the government came up with many solutions, nothing had worked efficiently till now.

There are two main groups observed in the victims, cultivators, and laborers. Rich or established farmers find solutions for their problems. Let us discuss the reasons for farmers to commit suicide.

Governments Role:

The government thought of a loan waiver as the solution for this. Also, the government organized various schemes and policies for farmers, but sometimes, it became imperative for the government to find other reasons to explain why it failed to contain farmer suicides.

But sometimes in the thought of getting the compensatory money farmers to kill themselves to pay those debts. In some cases, false accusations had come to show that farmers have committed suicide. But the state was keeping an eye on this. Each farmer’s suicide was investigated properly before sanctioning any amount to the family members. Due to the burdens of debt, farmers could not be wise enough in making decisions.

Reasons Observed For Farmers Suicides:

  • More expense than income: It is one of the main reasons for the devastated financial conditions of small farmers. The revenue generated with produced quantity is lesser than the initial investment. As it results in the burden of loans.

  • Traditional farming / no use of technology: Very few farmers use advanced technology for farming. They are dependent on the traditional way of farming. But they are not able to see the opportunity to enhance their products with the help of advanced technology. It results in better crop quality and fewer efforts rather than the traditional way of farming. Less production will lead to stagnant growth and increasing inflation, these are the reasons farmers can not cope with the current or future situations. Hence small farmers always have higher expenses than that of their income.

  • Absence of water management: More than 50 % of Indian farmers depends on rainwater and the water supplies like rivers. No irrigation techniques to save water. No storage plans for water. This leads to water crisis of water supply to your farms. very few farmers are careful about their water usage.

  • Water Crisis India’s 1.3 billion people have access to only about 4 percent of the world’s water resources and farmers consume 90 percent of the groundwater available. As global temperatures rise and overuse of water depletes existing resources, the threat to lives and business in Asia’s third-largest economy is projected to grow. In the long run, experts say water shortages will make crop diversification an inevitability. Currently, India is the world’s biggest extractor of groundwater — more than China and the US combined.

  • Increasing Input cost: Inflation impacts on the cost of cultivating factors. The price for cultivating wheat is tripled than that of 2005 price. It is because of:

  1. Cost of agricultural equipment
  2. cost of chemicals and seeds:
  3. Labor cost
  • Destressed due to loan: Most of the victims indebted to local banks or money lenders. It is not having empirical evidence but it can be assumed that the money lenders are involved in the harassment.

  • Lack of direct integration with the market: Mediator comes with the commission and increases the value of the product. So it is always better for farmers that if they can cut of these commissions and directly sell their products into the market. Although the initiative like National Agriculture Market, the reality, the implementation is lagging far behind. A mediator comes with the commission and increases the value of the product.

  • Lack of awareness: Literacy is the main problem observed in Indian farmers. Farmers do not research about government policies and schemes which are introduced to make farmer financially stable. Due to a lack of awareness farmers don’t get the benefits of such schemes or policies. Farmer is more reliable on policies related to his connections like relatives, neighbors, etc. But they are not updated with new schemes and policies.

  • Climate change: In recent years, the impact of climate change has damaged the farming of India. Already uncertain monsoon harms agricultural production, but climate change results in flash floods, deferred monsoon which had damaged agriculture sector of India.,