MORE than six decades after India shook away slavery, the plight of the farming community is so worse that they are forced to commit suicides. Farmers are committing suicides and it has been increasing over the years, reads one report. Since 1997 as many as 1, 82,936 farmers have forced to extinguish the lives. And, despite tall promises made by the rulers over the years, the government policies have been just cosmetics. Neo liberal policies adopted since 1991 when agriculture started getting step motherly treatment, the plight of the tillers of the land and Ann Data worsened. Public spending decreased as industries and other sectors got more attention.

Even now all eyes of the policy planners are focused on helping the industrial and commercial sector as if the present recessionary trends are not affecting the farm sector.

The condition of farmers has been deteriorating over a period of time. According to a study done by Professor K Nagaraj, a senior economist specialising in rural development and agrarian issues at the Madras Institute of Development Studies over 1.5 lakh farmers have committed suicides between 1997 and 2005. Two third of these are from Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Karnataka and Chhattisgarh. Most of these are either small or marginal farmers who have under stress of heavy debt committed suicide. The number has increased during the past three years.

Five worst-affected States are Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, and Chhattisgarh and account for two-thirds of all such suicides in the country. Together, they saw 11,026 in 2007. In the five years till 2001, there were 15,747 farmer suicides a year on average. For the six years from 2002, that annual average has risen to 17,366. The increase is distressingly higher in the main crisis States. there has been some decline in some of the worst suffering states.

Suicides by farmers of Maharashtra crossed the 4,000-mark in 2007, for the third time in four years, according to the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB). As many as 4,238 farmers of the State took their lives that year, the latest for which data are available, accounting for a fourth of 16,632 farmer suicides in the country.

The story of Punjab farmers particularly in the cotton belt is no different, though it has not drawn that attention of the central government. Over 13,000 farmers have taken to suicides to end their miserable existence.

Indebtedness, loans from money lenders instead of banks, influence of commercialization; trying to grow cash crops and taking heavy loans are major reasons for this tragic story.

Another report noted that "Increased liberalisation and globalisation have in fact led to a shift in the cropping pattern from staple crop to cash crops like oilseeds and cotton, requiring high investment in modern inputs and wage labour. This increases credit needs. But when the prices declined farmers have no means to supplement their incomes."

According to National Commission for Enterprises in the Unorganised Sector [NCEUS] the consumption expenditure of marginal and small farmers exceeds their estimated income by a substantial margin and the deficits have to be plugged by borrowing or other means.

The average monthly income of all farmers is estimated at Rs 2,115. This monthly income ranges from Rs 1,659 for marginal farmers to Rs 9,667 for large farmers. Poverty and social identity are co-related as the case of scheduled castes and tribes, backward castes and Muslims.

The NCEUS reported noted that many states including Punjab, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Maharashtra and Kerala have recorded a spurt in distress driven suicides among farmers. In most, if not all such cases, the economic status of the suicide victim was very poor, being small and marginal farmers.

After the green revolution, agricultural activities have become cash-based individual enterprises requiring high investment in modern inputs and wage labour as is evident from the list of states with high incidence of farmers’ suicides, which are not necessarily backward or predominantly agrarian or with low income.

A marginal farmer is defined as one having landholding less than 2.5 acre and a small farmer is defined as one having less than 5 acre. In India, a majority of the farmers are marginal and small. The recommendations made several experts seeking Rs 5,000 crore as special grant to help this section have been largely ignored. The money that came has been more or less pocketed by the corrupt officials and middlemen.

Increased liberalisation and globalisation have in fact led to a shift in the cropping pattern from staple crop to cash crops like oilseeds and cotton, requiring high investment in modern inputs and wage labour. This increases credit needs. But when the prices declined farmers have no means to supplement their incomes. It is here that the state intervention is direly needed.

Unlike industrialists, farmers do not have access to debt relief under any law. Being indebted to the private moneylenders, they cannot go to public authorities to declare them insolvent or to get any kind of debt relief. Incidence of indebtedness among farmer households was highest in Andhra Pradesh (82%), followed by Tamil Nadu (75%) and Punjab (65%).

The structural causes of this crisis seem untouched by recent debt relief that looks very hopeful otherwise.

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