Abstract

Background: This report talks about the various issues faced by farmers in context of both
psychological and socioeconomic variables, which affects the stability of farmers cerebrally
and somatically. Furthermore, how these issues affect the livelihood of farmers in turn
drifting them to take extreme measures by forcing them to end their own lives is also being
discussed.

Research Problem: The problem being discussed and researched upon in this report is: What
are the major factors that affect the farmers suicide in Maharashtra?

Methods: In this report we have used various online portals to briefly study and analyse the
topic so as to emphasize on current findings and gain a detailed perspective of various factors
affecting farmers. The sources for these are PubMed, Google Scholar articles, Government of
Maharashtra Reports and various syndicated reports available online.

Result: With light shed upon the recent finding and the study of various factors associated
with the farmers suicide case, we observed that the socio-economic status is more linked to
have an effect on the psychological well being of the farmers thus resulting in abrupt
measures taken by the vulnerable farmers. Decrease in yield of the produce, loss of
employment, decrease in income of farmers, along with the social impacts and environmental
impacts all these causes are interrelated and tend to intensify together.

Conclusion: Indebtedness and various other factors are majorly associated in the degrading
socio-economic status of the farmers and are identified as major risk factors. Furthermore, we
have also tried to register some of the future measures which can help improve the socio-
economic status of farmers.

Keywords: farmers, suicide, agriculture, psychological, socioeconomic, indebtedness.

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1. Introduction
Agriculture can be defined as an activity carried out by people in order to satiate their basic
need of food. There are various modes of fulfilling this activity out of which farming still
remains the most popular and widely used practice today. Farming is an act of sowing the
seeds and reaping the benefits of growing food with the supplementation of water. A farmer
is the person who carries out farming and depends his whole livelihood on this activity. India
is widely known as an “Agricultural Economy” due to its rich and diverse flora, that acts as a
major revenue generation source for a plethora of country’s population. In Maharashtra
approximately 64% of the entire state population is dependent on farming. (Udmale,
Ichikawa, Manandhar, Ishidaira, & Kiem, 2014)

Farmers in a developing economy like India do not have access to costly equipment and
manufacturing activities thus resort to cheap and traditional methods which involves a lot of
manual labour and effort. These practices thus result in a poorer yield as compared to the
other methods, thus driving the gap between the expected deliverables pertaining to the
monetary gains of farmers. Farmers when faced with such distress do not bore any other
options but they sway towards ending their life as the only option. (Merriott, 2017)

Suicidal behaviour is a major problem faced across the world. Over a million people commit
suicide across the globe. WHO report found that suicidal behaviour did not occur among
specific age group but, it is more among the age group of 15-29 globally. In India the number
of suicidal deaths by farmers have been major social and economic concern to the
Government of India. The large number of farmers committed suicides in various parts of
country is most disturbing phenomenon observed over past two decades in India. An
important observation regarding farmers' suicides is that suicide rates are high only in states
where cotton is an important crop.

According to the 2013 National Crime records Bureau statistics the estimated suicide rate for
general people is 11.2 out of 1,00,000 while that of farmers is approximately 50% more and
close to 15.2 in 1,00,000 farmer population. This indicates the farmers suicide is not
occurring due to organic reasons such as mental health issues but rather a different reason
such as socioeconomic and psychosocial circumstance. (Merriott, 2017)

Primarily the objectives of this study are to assess the various issues faced by farmers and
understand the reason behind them in a brief manner yet provide a comprehensive review of
all the various reasons. This will help paint a complete and concise picture as to the reasons
(Psychological and Socioeconomical) behind the suicide of farmers. (S.T., 2016)

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2. Review of Literature
In the paper titled “Critical Study of Farmers Suicide in Maharashtra- Causes and Remedies.”
The author has used various information sources such as government website, research
articles, magazines, journals national and vernacular newspapers with NCRB reports etc. and
they have provided an extensive survey of the causes and remedies of farmers suicide in
Maharashtra. The paper suggests various reasons for the suicide of farmers primarily, crop
failure and Indebtedness are the major influencing factors for driving their decision. The
factor provides a complete overview of the both organic and inorganic causes such as
Illiteracy, traditions, culture, lack of safe drinking water and other facilities such as proper
healthcare, food, clothing and shelter. As for the remedies to prevent the farmers suicide there
are numerous ways to do so with direct or indirect intervention. These remedies range from
an individual range to more wide range. Wealth management systems, providing special
provisions and subsidies, water irrigation facilities and education can help prevent such
occurrences. (S.T., 2016)

Similarly, in a report titled “Farmers suicide and debt waiver an action plan for agricultural
development of Maharashtra” by Dr Narendra Jadhav the then Vice-Chancellor of University
of Pune they have discussed a similar finding and reported the causes and action plan for
future reference for the farmers suicide issue. Maharashtra has always been regarded as one
of the progressive states in India, but faces backlash when considered the higher suicide rates
of farmers when compared with rest of states independently. Owing to this there was a debt-
waiver scheme implemented by the Government of India in order to reduce the debt burden
on farmers and Hon’ble Shri. Chidambaram had sanctioned a sum of Rs. 60,000 Crore for the
same in the annual budget of 2008-09. Three months post the budget period a scheme by the
title “Agricultural Debt Waiver and Debt Relief Scheme, 2008” was announced which helped
relieve the financial load of the farmers. (Jadhav, 2008)

In the paper titled “Farmers’ suicide in Vidarbha region of Maharashtra state: A myth or
reality?” the psychological autopsy of the farmers is studied in greater detail and provided in
an unpretentious manner while keeping the intricacies of their issues intact. In brief the report
provides context of the conclusions of the various studies undertaken previously regarding
the farmers suicides. Some of the conclusions are as follows; farmers demands are not taken
into consideration while preparing the relief package and also there was no consultation
between the various bodies of Government and the personnel. Also, the basis on which the
beneficiaries were selected was not properly defined which means that there was indecorous
distribution of resources for example, a farmer needing pump set was given bullocks and vice
versa thus it failed as a system to recognize and provide a valuable solution to the issues
faced by these farmers. (Behere & Behere, 2009)

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A literature search was undertaken and mentioned in a paper released by Dominic Meriott.
The search term was ‘India and Farm and (suicide or death)’. He found that a total 67 factors
were isolated which had relevance in concern with suicide of farmers in India. Indebtedness -
The most important factor which has been proven by many of researchers working on this
field. In Maharashtra, especially in Vidarbha region indebtedness has taken most of lives of
farmers. Later on, comes the environmental changes, price given for the crops and others.
(Merriott, 2017)

Kale found that in a sample from Vidarbha that 95% of farmer suicide victim are due to
rising debt of every year. While in another survey he found that 197 out of 200 victims
(98.5%) were due to debt. The trend of farmers to move from food crop to cash crops has
generally increased in past few decades. As the cash crop require more investment as
compared to food crop, the failure of crop in this case increases the burden of debt on
farmers. Another reason for increasing debt is farmers rely more on private moneylenders for
credit. Banking facilities in this sector has not been that successful. Through norms set up by
the Government of India, domestic commercial bank has to give 40 % of deposits to priority
sector in which 18% to be lent to agriculture sector. While, foreign banks have a low target of
32% to the targeted sector with no compulsion of lending loans to Agri-sector. The less
compulsion on banks to lend credits to farmers is the major reason to rely on private
moneylenders for quick credits. Various studies have mentioned that the percentage of
farmers suicide relying on private money lenders has been more then compared to bank
loans. (Kale, Khonde, & Mankar, 2014)

Changing climatic conditions has become a serious concern worldwide. According to

National Rainfed Authority of India almost 60% cultivated area relies on natural rainfall and
changing pattern of rainfall is a significant threat to the Agrarian Economy of India. In
Maharashtra, repeated droughts in the drought prone areas of state has led many farmers to
commit suicide. As 64% population of state is engaged in Agriculture. The outcome of
drought is decreased yield of crops, livestock production, unemployment and finally drastic
decrease in income of farmers. The environmental impact of drought has been increasing in
atmospheric temperature, increase in water salinity, shrinking of forest covered areas,
disturbing wild life cycle and depletion of ground water has affected farmers on large extent.
(Udmale et al., 2014)

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3. Research Methodology:
The research mentioned in this report is qualitative and uses data available from secondary
data sources (online and offline platforms). The data was referred from reputable sources
such as Journal of Epidemiology and Global Health, International Journal of Disaster Risk
Reduction (Elsevier), Indian Journal of Psychiatry, Economic and Political weekly (JSTOR)
and Government of Maharashtra reports. The sources have been appropriately mentioned in
the report.

3.1 Research Questions:

a. What are the factors responsible for farmers suicide in Maharashtra?

b. What are the preventive measures taken by the Government of India & Government of
Maharashtra for farmers?

c. What can be done help to increase the socio-economic status of farmers?

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 4. Analysis and Discussion
4.1 Overview of Maharashtra as a state:

Item 1960-61 1970-71 1980-81 1990-91 2000-01 2010-11 2016-17

Population as per 1961 1971 1981 1991 2001 2011 2011
census (in '000)
Total 39,554 50,412 62,784 78,937 96,879 1,12,374 1,12,374
Males 20,429 26,116 32,415 40,826 50,401 58,243 58,243
Females 19,125 24,296 30,369 38,111 46,478 54,131 54,131
Rural 28,391 34,701 40,791 48,395 55,778 61,556 61,556
Urban 11,163 15,711 21,993 30,542 41,101 50,818 50,818
Scheduled Castes 2,227 3,177 4,480 8,758 9,882 13,276 13,276
Scheduled Tribes 2,397 3,841 5,772 7,318 8,577 10,510 10,510
Density of 129 164 204 257 315 365 365
population (per sq.
km.)
Literacy rate 35.10 45.80 57.10 64.90 76.90 82.30 82.30
(percentage)
Sex ratio (Females. 936 930 937 934 922 929 929
per thousand man.)
Percentage of 28.22 31.17 35.03 38.69 42.43 45.20 45.20
urban population
Nominal State Income
State Income 2,249 5,780 19,377 68,861 2,43,584 9,50,771 19,86,806
(crore)
Agriculture & 585 1,078 3,756 12,326 32,711 1,22,932 2,26,548
allied activities
(crore)
Industry Sector 553 1,732 6 22,554 64,942 2,63,512 5,46,303
(crore)
Service Sector 1,111 2,969 9,397 33,981 1,45,931 5,64,126 9,29,139
(crore)
Per capita State 376 1,168 3,112 8,811 28,540 84,858 1,65,491
income (In Rs.)
Rainfall (% in 102.3 84.3
Normal)
Agriculture -(Area in '000 ha)
Net Area Sown 17,878 17,668 18,299 18,565 1,78,414 17,406 N.A.
Gross Cropped 18,823 18,737 19,642 21,859 21,619 2,375 N.A.
Area
Gross Irrigated 1,220 1,570 2,415 3,319 3,852 @ @
Area
of which 226 422 718 1,076 1,764 2,955 39,474
commanded area^
Percentage of 6.5 8.4 113 15.2 17.8 N.A. NA.
gross irrigated area 6
to gross cropped
area
Key: N.A. Not Available @ Excluding 3 Talukas of Mumbai & Mumbai suburban Districts ^ Command area created by Water Resources Dept.

(Source: Chief Auditor, Water and Irrigation, Aurangabad under Water Resources
Department)
Following are the recent statistics sourced from Government of Maharashtra Economic
survey report published in the year 2018 and accessed on 25th March 2019. This paints an
overall picture of gradual changes over the years in the socio-economic portfolio of people
living in Maharashtra.

4.2 Agro-Climatic Conditions of Maharashtra

Maharashtra has typical monsoon climate with tropical conditions prevailing all over the
State with three distinct seasons of which rainy season comprises of June to September.
There are large variations in the quantity of rainfall within different parts of the State. The
State has nine agro-climatic zones based on rainfall, soil type and the vegetation.

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4.3 Farmers Suicide (Ten Year data)

Farmers Farmers
Year Year
Suicide Suicide
1995 1083 2006 4453
1996 1981 2007 4238
1997 1917 2008 3802
1998 2409 2009 2872
1999 2423 2010 3141
2000 3022 2011 3337
2001 3536 2012 3786
2002 3695 2013 3146
2003 3836 2014 2568
2004 4147 2015 3228
2005 3926

Owing to the findings we can analyse the suicide trend of farmers in Maharashtra on the
following parameters:

4.3.a. Gender: Suicide rates of farmers in Maharashtra can be distinguished on the basis of
gender and other parameters as well. Gender of the victim is the easiest determination feature
of the mortality rates and severity of the case. Majority of the population committing self-
harm are the sole wage earners of the family and thus take extreme measures during times of
distress. Males when burdened with the choices of unfathomable implications tend to harm
themselves. On the other hand, females too are not varied of the practice but comparatively
do tend to exhibit much more resilience than their counterparts.

4.3.b. Age: Suicide phenomenon is a social one and is very much likely to be dependent on
age. The rates of suicide are different for both the genders in terms of age as a criterion,
assuming all other factors are less relevant. The number of suicides of male farmers (9903 in
the year 2004) has always been a higher one as compared to females (4826 in the year 2004).
When considering the age group as the choice model the highest amount of mortality rates
can be found in people with age of approximately 30 – 44 years and 45 – 59 years. This can
be interpreted in numerous ways, logically; the sense of responsibilities and the peer pressure
is highest during these times as the victim is exposed to all the forces (natural and artificial)
during this time.

4.3.c. Education and Marital status: Education wise and marital status wise average suicidal
mortality rates by gender in the state are highest in the middle school completed and
matriculates in both males and females. Similarly, in the marital status category the death rate
due to divorce or separation of the couple is highest in both sexes. This can be interpreted in
the way which explains the social implications on the psyche of the farmers due to the
subconscious effect. Social acceptance and Image projection is crucial to humans as being

8
part of a social animal culture which affects the cognitive abilities of humans to think and act
rationally and can be hampered due to external unavoidable circumstances.

4.3.d. Occupation wise: People employed in agriculture showed highest rates of suicide
amongst the population employed in other activities than agriculture. Whereas in case of
females the highest rate of mortality was exhibited among the housewife category yet, the
second highest rate was observed among the females employed in agriculture.

To sum up all the findings, there were various causes for suicide of farmers in Maharashtra
prime of which were associated directly to their socio-economic status and exhibited high
amount of co-relation with their mental and physical well-being. This affects various
parameters in their daily activities and ultimately also has an effect on decision making
abilities thus resulting in unfortunate case of suicide.

4.4 Various schemes instilled for farmers:

Agriculture & allied activities play an important role in GDP of country and state, so the
respective ruling government has always been promoting and getting innovative technologies
to increase the share of Agriculture in GDP. Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) also
mentions promotion of sustainable Agriculture and ensuring availability and sustainable
management of water. In Maharashtra, farmers are mostly dependent on monsoon for
irrigation. There have been varied schemes implemented by the Government of India.
Recently GOI implemented few schemes such as:

4.4.a. Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana:

Started in 2016, covers 15 kharif and 8 rabi crops. The objective of this scheme is to provide
insurance coverage and financial support to the farmers in the event of failure of any of the
notified crop as a result of natural calamities, pests & diseases. In 2016-17, farmers who
registered under this scheme was 118.01 lakh, while total compensation paid was 1,919.97 cr
to 27.85lakh. (G. of India, 2019)

4.4.b. Soil Health Management (SHM) & Soil Health Cards (SHC):

The Soil Health Mission was launched feb 2015. Objective of this scheme was to maintain
soil health and improve soil fertility. In the State, fives testing lab were established in
Amravati, Aurangabad, Nashik, Pune & Kolhapur. In 2015-17, 129.77 lakh SHCs were
distributed amongst the farmers. During 2017-18 till December, 18.89 lakh SHCs were
distributed. ( ministry of agriculture and farmers welfare government of India, 2019b)

4.4.c. Paramparagat Krishi Vikas Yojana (PKVY):

Started in march 2016, Organic farming is being implemented for improvement of soil health
and to minimise the use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides in order to maintain
sustainability in agricultural production and productivity. This scheme is initiated to
encourage small & marginal farmers for the use of organic components. Under this
programme, funds of 140.72 crore are sanctioned by Government of India for three years

9
(from 2016-17 to 2018-19) for organic farming. ( ministry of agriculture and farmers welfare
government of India, 2019a)

Also, initiatives were taken by the state government to give benefits to farmers so they could
improve their socio-economic status & prevent them from taking extreme decisions such as
suicide.

4.4.1 Unnat Sheti-Samruddha Shetkari Campaign:

Government of Maharshtra launched this scheme in 2017 with a very impressive objective to
almost double the income of farmers by 2022. The campaign is mainly to increase the income
of farmers through increasing the productivity of major crops and maximum participation of
farmers in the crop insurance schemes to protect them from the losses incurred due to natural
calamity.

4.4.2 Magel Tyala Shet Tale Yojana:

Government of Maharashtra started this scheme in 2016, it is a very ambitious scheme to

make small ponds for farmers to conserve water for their farms, basically priority was given
to small and marginal farmers. An individual farmer holding min 0.60 ha of farm were
eligible for the subsidy under the scheme. Legislative assembly of Maharashtra assigned
amount of 10,000cr for this scheme. Till date 60,496 farm ponds were created and target of
1,12,311 is to be achieved. (Maharashtra, 2016)

Thus, the initiatives taken by both Government of India and state government has been
fruitful. Recent years had favourable climatic conditions so in year 2016-17, major crop
production resulted in growth of 22.5% in Agriculture and allied activities. While, food crops
production increased remarkably by 106.9% than the year 2015-16. Production of oilseeds
and cotton increased by nearly 135.9% and 174.8%. Still there have to be improvement to
benefit farmers, even though the production has gone up still the number have suicides has
not yet decreased.

4.5 Measures that can be taken to improve socio-economic status of farmers:

In this dilemma which encapsulates the hardships faced by farmers although there are many
schemes which support the farmers in the tough times yet they lack effectivity and are error
prone to reach out to the farmers in need. It is usually the Maharashtra state agricultural board
that is entrusted with activities of development and promotional activities of the agricultural
produce in state. Now in order to develop the socio-economic status of farmers the most
important parameter is to increase the earnings per capita of the farmers by reducing the
production rates and in turn having a higher margin on the merchandise they offer. One of the
many ways to do this is to have a “Minimum Support Price Scheme”. Under this scheme the
various procurement committees in Maharashtra come together and work in coalition so as to
procure the produce in fair price and offer the consumers at a fixed price so as to benefit the
farmers thus resulting in growth in socio-economic status of farmers.

10
Another way to do this is the various state departments and municipal corporations make the
land available for weekly markets to the farmers to start an abhiyaan called “Farm-to-Fork”
in this market the farmers, farmers’ co-operative societies, farmers production companies,
consumer cooperative societies and producers co-operative societies can sell their produce to
the consumers directly at a fixed rate directly. This eliminates the middlemen and distributors
which eat away the profits and thus result in slow and degrading condition of farmer.

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5. Findings & Conclusion
A country with population of 1.3 billion and more than 50% of workforce engaged in
Agriculture, it is very difficult to determine a single cause for farmers suicide. In
Maharashtra, drought is been a recurring phenomenon. The condition of drought along with
other reasons have jeopardized the agrarian economy of state. This has led threat to farming
communities socially and economically. Reasons for farmers suicide we came across were
indebtedness, continuous failure of crop, low income then expenditure, tension of wedding of
daughter and stress for repayments of loans from banks & moneylenders etc. There also has
been observation that almost 74% of farmers who committed suicide belong to age category
between 20 – 50 years. The most farmers committing suicide belong to Vidarbha region of
Maharashtra, there almost 3.4 million cotton farmers out of them 95% of them are under
pressure of debts. Yavatmal seems to be the epicentre of the state of farmers suicide with
32% of suicide in the Vidarbha division of Maharashtra. This suicide is majorly concentrated
in drought suffering regions. Monsoon season and especially the month pf July and august
have a greater number of suicides in state. Around ¾ of the total suicide are committed by
using pesticide. In this major reason are drought, extreme rainfall in few conditions & failures
in crops due to some insect resistant strains. Indebtedness being the largest reason i.e. 66%
followed by crop failure 25%, in case of single risk factor agrarian crisis eventually leads to
economic crisis which have major social impact in this cascade of events alcohol addiction is
major step. Family history of suicide should be noted to this conclusion the extent of suicides
rises with increase in family responsibilities which increases after having children of age
more than 10-15. Level of education cannot be directly related to suicide while small and
medium land holders constitute major share of suicides.

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