Maharashtra still accounts for 1/3rd of the Farmer suicides in the country
Sai Krishna Muthyanolla
November 27, 2019
The NCRB recently released the ‘Accidental Deaths and Suicides in India’ report for 2016 after a long delay. The total number of reported suicides of farmers/agricultural labourers came down in 2016 and this number is the lowest-ever since 2000. Maharashtra still accounts for 1/3rd of all such suicides in the country. Among the bigger states, Telangana reported a 54% decrease in suicides in 2016.
The National CrimeRecords Bureau (NCRB) released yet another important annual report, ‘Accidental
Deaths and Suicides in India’ (ADSI)of 2016 earlier this month after the elections in Maharashtra. The government& the NCRB faced severe criticism for the long delay in the release of thisreport. Along with other data such as natural and unnatural deaths, this reportpresents the details of suicides including farmer suicides across India in acalendar year. The 2016 report, despite the delay, had omitted the reasonsbehind the suicides of farmers such as distress, drought, etc. which were partof the earlier
reports.
It is a known factthat the vast majority of the rural population is still dependent on agriculturefor making ends meet. Year after year, thousands of farmers succumb to the agrariancrisis and give up their lives, for varied reasons.
ADSI 2016 has omitted key sections related to Farmer
Suicides
The older  ADSI-2015
report contained a separate section forreporting farmer suicides. The report presented details regarding the causes offarmer suicides such as personal issues, health issues, financial issues andcrop related reasons. Data at both State/UT level and the national level wasgiven for farmer suicides on the basis of landholding size. This includedmarginal, small, medium and large farmers. These sections have been removed inthe 2016 report.
The number of suicides in the agriculture sector touched
a 16-year low in 2016
According to the ADSI
report of 2016, a total of 11,379persons involved in the farming sector have taken their own lives. The numberof ‘Farmers/Cultivators & Agricultural Labourers’  suicides reported in the year 2016 is thelowest reported in the 16 years since the year 2000.
Number of suchsuicides has reduced by almost 33% in 2016 when compared to the year 2006.  Compared to 2015, the number of cases has reducedby almost 10%.
The suicides inthe agriculture sector account for about 8.7% of the total number of suicides(131,008) reported across the country in 2016. The specific reasons for suicidesof those in involved in the agricultural sector have not been mentioned in the 2016report unlike in the older
reports.  Indebtedness, crop failures or even personalissues could have led to these suicides if one were to go by reasons mentionedin the previous reports.
Male Farmers & Labourers account for 92% of
suicides in the sector
Out of the total11,379 suicides reported in this sector, females constituted hardly 8% whilemales constituted the remaining 92%. No transgender in this sector was reportedto have committed suicide.
However, in thisyear’s report, separate data has been provided on the basis of land ownership,in other words if the person cultivated own land or leased land and data on agriculturallabourers.
55% Suicides by Cultivators & remaining 45% by
Labourers
Of the totalsuicides in the farming sector, farmers and cultivators accounted for 6,270 or 55%of the suicides while the remaining 45% of the suicides in this sector werethat of agricultural labourers.
Among the farmers,275 suicides were of women farmers and among the labourers, 633 were of womenlabourers. In other words, 4.3% of the farmer suicides and 12.4% of theagricultural labourers’ suicides were of women.
84% of the farmer suicides are by those who own the
land they cultivate
The category offarmers/cultivators includes both farmers who cultivate on their own land andfarmers who cultivate on leased land (land which does not belong to them). The2016 data reveals that majority of the suicide incidents (84%) were that offarmers who own the land they cultivate. A total of 5,052 male and 219 femalefarmers who own the land which they cultivate have committed suicide in 2016.Furthermore, 943 male and 56 female farmers who cultivated on leased land tooktheir lives in 2016.
Maharashtra yet again accounts for the maximum number
of suicides in this sector
A state
wise analysis of the available data showsthat Maharashtra continues to report the maximum number of farmer suicides inIndia. The suicides in Maharashtra (2550) account for almost 41% of the total farmersuicides in the country despite a reduction of 15% in such incidents. In 2015, Maharashtrareported 3030 such cases.
Karnataka reported1212 suicides (19.3%) followed by Telangana with 632 (10%) incidents. Thesethree states together have reported 70% of the total farmer suicides in thecountry. The states of Bihar, West Bengal, Goa, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh,Jammu and Kashmir, Mizoram, Nagaland and Uttarakhand have not reported any suchincident.
In the case ofagricultural labourers as well, Maharashtra again has reported the maximumnumber of incidents (21.7% of the total incidents) reported in 2016. Karnatakareported 867 cases (17%), Madhya Pradesh- 722 cases (14%) and Andhra Pradesh-565 cases (11%). States of Arunachal Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, Manipur,Nagaland and West Bengal have reported zero incidents. All the suicidesreported in Haryana (250) are that of labourers.
One out of three deaths in farming sector is reported
in Maharashtra
If the totalnumber of suicides of persons involved in the agriculture sector is considered,it is observed that the suicides in Maharashtra amounted to 32% of the total suicidesin the country. This can also be interpreted as one out of three suicides ofthose involved in agriculture takes place in Maharashtra.
States which havereported more than 100 cases each have been represented in the above chart. Maharashtra,Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh together account for 69% of the totalsuicides in this sector.  The suicides offarmers and agricultural labourers in Maharashtra is almost 21% of all the suicides in the state whereas the national average is8.7%. The drought prone Marathwada and Vidarbha regions are in Maharashtra fromwhere the majority of these suicides are reported.
Karnataka witnessed an increase of 1,311 suicides in
the sector since 2014
Looking at thenumber of such suicides reported
by each state in 2015 and 2016, onecan observe that among the bigger states, in Karnataka, the number of incidentshas shot up by 510  (32.5%). In fact,Karnataka had also witnessed a 104% increase in 2015 as compared to 2014. Otherstates which reported an increase are given below.
In the states ofHaryana, Madhya Pradesh and Punjab, it was observed that even in 2015, thenumber of suicides reported in the agricultural sector had increased by 36.1%,7.7% and 93.8% respectively compared to 2014.
Telangana has reported a reduction in suicides by 54% in
2016
States whichreported reduction of more than 50 suicides are listed below along with thepercentage reduction. Telangana has witnessed a decline in suicides in farmingsector by 54% and 755 cases compared to 2015.
In 2015, amongthese states, only Tamil Nadu had reported a decline by 32.3% compared to 2014.The number of suicides decreased from 895 in 2014 to 606 in 2015 and 381 in2016. A net decrease of more than 57% has been recorded.
What
about other studies?
A study on farmersuicides was conducted
by ISEC, Bengaluru in 2017, commissioned bythe ‘Department of Agriculture’ of Government of India. The study was conductedacross 13 major states in the country which reported high number of suicidecases. A total of 528 victims’ households were surveyed. Causes of farmersuicides were classified broadly into three categories- social, farming anddebt related causes.
In terms offarming related causes, expectation of non- institutional credit was the reasonbehind 37% of deaths while failure of rain resulted in 36% of deaths. 44% ofthe victims’ households claimed institutional loans to be the reason. Alcoholism/drug addiction also accounted for 26% of the deaths. Other reasons includeillness, fall in reputation, daughter’s wedding, family quarrel and more. Ithas to be noted that the study recorded debt related issues, farming relatedissues and social causes separately for each of the suicide cases consideredfor the study. Hence there could be multiple reasons attributed to a suicidefrom amongst the various categories.  Thestudy mentions that the act of committing suicide was a combination of severalcumulative causes which can be grouped into social, farming and debt-related.