Question : Causes of Suicides by Farmers

(a) the number of suicides committed by farmers and farm labourers separately from 2014 to 2019, year-wise, State-wise, occupation-wise along with the socio-economic status and land-holding of each victim;

(b) whether the Government has authorized/ sponsored any study to assess the causes of suicides by farmers, including cases of being exploited by financial institutions;

(c) if so, the findings and details thereof, including the amount spent and persons involved and if not, the reasons therefor;

(d) whether the Government has planned to release an annual report on the situation of farmers to indicate whether the country is on track to doubling their income by 2022; and

(e) if so, the timeline thereof and if not, the reasons therefor?

MINISTER OF AGRICULTURE AND FARMERS WELFARE

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(a): The National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) under the Ministry of Home Affairs compiles and disseminates information on suicides in its publication titled ‘Accidental Deaths and Suicides in India’ (ADSI). These Reports on suicides upto 2018 are available on its website. The Report for the year 2019 is not published.

(b) & (c): Government conducted a study titled ‘Farmer Suicides: An All India Study’ during 2016-17 to ascertain various reasons for the growing number of farmers suicide in the country. This Pan-India study was carried out in 13 major suicide prone states namely: Uttar Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Haryana, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Punjab, Maharashtra, Gujarat, West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Karnataka covering 46 districts, 138 talukas, 388 villages and 528 sample victim households. The reference year of the study was decided as the agriculture year 2015-16 (June, 2015 – May, 2016). The main objectives of the study were as follows:

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i) to analyze the incidence and spread of farmer suicides in selected states and to map the hotspots of suicide.

ii) to study the socio-economic profile, cropping pattern and profitability in the victim’s households,

iii) to study the causes leading to suicides.

iv) to recommend suitable policies to avert farmer suicide.

The study was assigned to Agro-Economic Research (AER) Unit Agricultural Development and Rural Transformation Centre (ADRTC) at Institute for Social and Economic Change (ISEC) Bengaluru which is a part of Agro-Economic Research (AER) Scheme being implemented by Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare to conduct research studies on Agro-Economic problems. It is 100% funded through Grant-in-Aid by the Government and no study specific funds are provided to AER Centres/ Units. The study found that various reasons for farmers suicide are drug/ alcoholic addiction, illness, family issues, gambling, expectation of non-institutional credit, lack of access to expected credit, failure of rain, cyclone, drought, non realization of higher output/ prices, crop failure etc.

(d) & (e): There is no proposal under consideration to release an annual report on the situation of farmers.
However, the Government had constituted an Inter-Ministerial Committee in 2016 to recommend a strategy for Doubling of Farmers’ Income (DFI) by the year 2022. The DFI Committee submitted its report and thereafter the Government constituted an Empowered Body on 23.01.2019 to monitor and review the progress as per these recommendations. To achieve this, the Committee has identified seven sources of income growth viz., improvement in crop productivity; improvement in livestock productivity; resource use efficiency or savings in the cost of production; increase in the cropping intensity; diversification towards high value crops; improvement in real prices received by farmers; and shift from farm to non-farm occupations.
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