NAME OF THE STUDENT: GUPTA SHIVANI SHIVKUMAR
TOPIC: FARMER’S SUICIDE
1. INTRODUCTION
The India is a developing country and still not finds the appropriate solution for farmer. Indian agriculture is still 70% of people cultivates without use of technology and better method. The farmer in India still cultivate their farm in traditional way and equipment. Problem is so big of farmer suicide because of 70% Indian economy have the agriculture and agriculture based occupations therefore it is important to avoid the farmers from committing suicides.
The conditional of the most of the farmers is very shocking because of nearly75%-80% of the farmers in India belong to marginal and small farmers category. The agriculture supports nearly 50% of the employment but contributes only 15%to the gross domestic product (GDP). Everyday there is news coming on farmers suicides from different parts of the country. The India agriculture is depends upon the rain falls and farmer do not have some types of equipments and techniques therefore they cannot fight against drought and flood or other problems regarding the agro.
In 2014 the national crime bureau reported that 5650 farmer committed suicide and in the year 2018 2,761 farmers committed suicide in 2018, the number was 2,917 in 2017. The higher farmer suicide recorded in year of 2004 that was 18,241.
2. OBJECTIVES:
1.To study the problem of farmer suicides in Maharashtra.
2.To know the causes of the farmer suicides in Maharashtra.
3.To study district wise density of farmer suicides in Maharashtra.
4.To suggest the remedies on the farmer suicides.
LITERATURE REVIEW:
Srijit Mishra (2008) resulted that the low returns and declining profitability is responsible for the farmer suicides in India and it also recommended that risk management in agriculture should address yield, price, credit, income or weather related uncertainties among others.
Jonathan kennedy and Lawrence king (2014) focused on the political economic of farmer suicides in India it find that liberalization affected on farmer productivity and the social status. Khan, M.T joshi, P.K, Khurana, R.,Kishore, A 2018 studied about the watershed treatment and concluded that the watershed reduced the yield loss due to drought by more than 30% it is a good remedy for improvement to the farmer economical situations. Kumar daksh, varsha kumari, Anjani kumari 2018 made research on the drought risk assessment and state that standardized precipitation Index is powerful tool to control the drought. DR. Murugan and DR. Sivagnanam jothi (2018) make focuse on the farmer suicides in India it state that the social psychological traditional and other factor influences to the farmer suicides in India.
3. CAUSES:
Natural calamities:
In addition to economic reasons natural calamitiesare also responsible for farmers’ suicides. The effective agricultural production mostly depends on favorable we aether condition.
Due to the global war min g, deforestation and other manmade rea sons, natural condition has become more worsen and reasons like heavy raining, floods, droughts, delay in raining, heavy cyclones, and manmade reasons like reduction in subsidies, fire, accidents and so on, farmers are not able to take qualitative and quantitative production from their farms. Even when all the conditions are in favor of farmers in terms of quality and quantity of production, farmers don’t get proper return of their product in the market, as more supply of goods reduces demand and reductio n in demand sautomatically reduces price of the same. Most of the time farmers are not able to recover cost price of their produce.
Proper educational facilities:
The State governments declare Minimum Support Price(MSP) of the agricultural produce every year. But the MSP declared by government are less than the total cost incurred for production. Due to these reasons agriculture becomes an assured loss making business, but the marginal& small farmers of India don’t have another option for earning and they again & again put their all efforts in the agriculture. Continuous losses turn them to become insolvent and frustration of the same forces them to commit suicides (Sadashiv, 2015).
Education is a important tool which can reach the
farmers on prosperous path. Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar,
Mahatma Gandhi, Mahatma Jotiba Fule etc social
workers have identified and stressed on the importance
of education for farmers. This is used for upliftment and
development of the farmers there is needed to take a joint initiative by state government with central government. Financial institutions, NGOs, social thinkers and planners have to play proper and convenient role to eradicate the farmers related problems by helping hands.
Overall educational level in the Vidharbh region
especially in rural areas is not satisfactory. Special attention is need on main basic reason of education problem of farmers in that region.
Water management:-
In most cases, it is not the lack of water but the lack of proper water management that causes water shortage. Improved modern methods of rain water harvesting should be developed. Most of the water from drainage is drained into the river. Instead of draining the water into the river, they can be desalted and purified and diverted to some tanks or lakes in nearby agricultural lands to be used for irrigation. The silt can be used as manure.
Solutions to Prevent Farmer Suicide in India:
To overcome this problem first of all government should make sure that whatever subsidies and welfare schemes they announced, it should reach to the farmers of small villages. The government has implemented agricultural debt but they should decrease the rate of interest or I will say that for farmers there should not be interest on the money the took as a debt. Introducing modern techniques of farming will help to face the drought situations also they will be able to grow some crops even in less water.
In drought areas, the government should provide employability sources other than agriculture so that farmers will not just depend on agriculture to earn the money. In every village, there needs to be a small organization which conducts various agricultural activities that will help farmers while farming. Many farmers are not aware of the crop rotation so through this agricultural activity they will get to know about this.
4. EFFECTS:
When Prince Charles claimed thousands of Indian farmers were killing themselves after using GM crops, he was branded a scaremonger. In fact, as this chilling dispatch reveals, it's even WORSE than he feared.
The children were inconsolable. Mute with shock and fighting back tears, they huddled beside their mother as friends and neighbours prepared their father's body for cremation on a blazing bonfire built on the cracked, barren fields near their home.
As flames consumed the corpse, Ganjanan, 12, and Kalpana, 14, faced a grim future. While Shankara Mandaukar had hoped his son and daughter would have a better life under India's economic boom, they now face working as slave labour for a few pence a day. Landless and homeless, they will be the lowest of the low.
Human tragedy: A farmer and child in India's 'suicide belt'
5. MARKETING FACILITIES:
The Agriculture Produce Market Committee (APMC) Act should be amended to provide direct marketing by farmer sand development of private markets to create an enabling environment for increased investment and to provide farmers the alternative options. Farmers are assured of marketing and prices in case of wheat and paddy. However, there are no such arrangements for other crops namely maize, pulses, oil seeds, vegetables and fruits. These are the crops which are proposed for diversification and partrly placement of paddy area for long term sustainability. The product specific markets, e.g. for maize, basmati, potatoes, chillies, flowers, milk products should be developed to facilitate the handling of produce and it saggregation for purchase.
6.CONTRACT FARMING:
Contract farming as a mean for providing ensured market to the producers should be encouraged by making the mutual contracts enforceable. The APMC Act amendment should have provisions for Contract Farming or a separate Contract Farming Act should be legislated to ensure smooth execution of contract between the contracting farmers and the contractor.
7.PREVENTIVE MEASURES:
The problem of farmer suicides has assumed a serious proporition. The toll is increasing year after year. According to the National Crime Record Bureau (NCRB), as many as 5,650 farmers committed suicide in India last year. This works out to one farmer suicide in every 100 villages or one farmer suicide in every block in the country last year. State-wise, Maharashtra accounted for the highest number of farmer suicides (2568) distantly followed by Telangana (898), Madhya Pradesh (825), Chhattisgarh (443) and Karnataka (321). These five states together accounted for about 90 per cent of total farmer suicides.
NCRB pointed out that bankruptcy or indebtedness was the main cause, accounting for 20.6 per cent, closely followed by family issues (20.1 per cent), failure of crops (16.8 per cent), illness (13.2 per cent), whereas drug abuses/alcoholic addiction accounted for 4.9 per cent cases. These five causes together accounted for 75.6 per cent of total farmer suicides. Small and marginal farmers accounted for about 72.4 per cent of total farmer suicides. After a farmer commits suicide, government quite often swings into action and provides hectic financial relief to the family of the deceased. This entails heavy pressure on state exchequer, on one hand and causes irreparable loss to the family and society, on the other.
Rather than spending afterwards on relief package to deal with farmer suicides, it will be better to take preventive measures to control this crisis. The preventive measures should be addressed on both social and economic fronts. In this connection, the importance of financial literacy, education, counselling, and medical services cannot be over-emphasised for addressing social causes. However, economic causes leading to erosion in farm income need to be taken up with a sense of urgency. Farm income is exposed to both production and market risks.
The production risk particularly due to crop failure is being taken care of, at least theoretically, by Agricultural Insurance Company with crop damage estimates at block or sub-block levels. Needless to say, estimates at the individual farm level are imperative to help the affected farmers. The efficiency of this can be enhanced by use of remote sensing techniques rather than crop cutting experiments. This will also curtail lengthy procedural delays and reduce the human bias to a great extent to ensure timely assistance to the farmers. Unfortunately, there is still no mechanism to address market risk. Thus, there, is an urgent need to speed up agricultural marketing reforms to ensure fair deal to farmers.
8. EFFECTIVENESS OF GOVERNMENT RESPONSE:
The government's response and relief packages have generally been ineffective, misdirected, and flawed, states Surinder Sud.[113] It has focused on credit and loan, rather than income, productivity, and farmer prosperity.
Due to Anti Farmer laws, there is no scope for farmers to do the business or sell or lease farm or farm products. Assistance in paying off outstanding principal and interest helps the money lenders but has failed to create reliable and good sources of income for the farmer going forward.
The usurious moneylenders continue to offer loans at interest rates between 24 and 50 percent, while the income-generating potential of the land the farmer works on has remained low and subject to weather conditions.[113] Sud states that the government has failed to understand that debt relief just postpones the problem and a more lasting answer to farmer distress can only come from reliable income sources, higher crop yields per hectare, irrigation and other infrastructure security.[113] Golait, in a Reserve Bank of India paper,[114] acknowledged the positive role of crop diversification initiative announced in government's response to reports of farmer suicides.
Golait added, "Indian agriculture still suffers from: i) poor productivity, ii) falling water levels, iii) expensive credit, iv) a distorted market, v) many middlemen and intermediaries who increase cost but do not add much value, vi) laws that stifle private investment, vii) controlled prices, viii) poor infrastructure and ix) inappropriate research. Thus the approach with a mere emphasis on credit in isolation from the above factors will not help agriculture".[114] Furthermore, recommended Golait, a more pro-active role in creating and maintaining reliable irrigation and other agriculture infrastructure is necessary to address farmer distress in India.[114]
9. CASE STUDY:
Problem identification & analysis:
After doing initial research based on the data provided in the case as well in the leading newspapers I can clearly establish this fact that there has been higher number of farmer’s suicide rate during last couple of years in India. Scope of this analysis is limited to all states of India.
The 3 main reasons for farmer’s suicide are:
indebtedness/loans taken by small, medium and marginal farmers
Farming practices related issues
Family problems
We need to target each of these pillars in an effective way to address this problem completely.
Solution Proposed:
Indebtedness/loans taken by small, medium and marginal farmers
1) Getting farmers loans from the state owned banks at very low interest rates. Making sure that all the farmers have aadhaar linked bank account/passbooks to get the loan amount and even their loan account is linked with crop insurance schemes (Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana) to ensure farmer protection in case of crop failure.
2) Creating awareness among farmers on the crop insurance scheme’s introduced by government of India for the agriculture produce/output so as to ensure them that if there field productivity gets hit due to errant rains/monsoon, they are still secure.
How to create awareness on the CROP insurance schemes
By holding regular weekly meetings during the panchayats sessions just before the sowing or monsoon season
By performing Nukad-Naatak’s with local people in regional tribal language to ensure greater reach
Ensuring public private partnership and engaging NGO’s as well to do door to door campaign and reach out to maximum farmers.
3) Providing them alternate ways of earnings in case if there is failure in monsoon season or any adverse impact in agricultural output
How to engage farmer community in case of agriculture production failure:
Engaging them in agriculture allied industries like Animal husbandry/other cottage industry etc.
4) Tying up with different MNC’s like ITC, Pepsico etc and asking them to actively adopt the villages/farmers. Providing MNC’s with some tax incentives for doing the same.
Farming practices related issues:
1) Due to changing weather conditions, monsoons/rains are errant these days, leading to not a sustained source of water supply. Additionally when it rains excessive, it results into flooding and when it rains less, it results into drought. The plan is to avoid any of these extreme situations by proactively communicating this information from Metrological department to our respective farmer community.
How to communicate this rain forecast information accurately to farmers:
Now with our weather forecasting satellites in place, our forecasting have informed tremendous, there are mobile apps from IMD which farmers can download and see the weather conditions in their respective villages/taluka/districts.
2) Well in advance before the monsoon season, we need to start building up the structures for replenishment of water sources so that water content level in the soil can be recharged which farmers can get benefit from.
During our ancient times, Kings/Maharaja used to ask for making artificial lakes/canals so that farmers/people can get benefit from those manmade structure during the latter part of the year when there is limited or no rains.
How to build those artificial water bodies before monsoon season
By engaging government agencies, NGO, non-profit organizations and local leaders support is required for this noble cause.
Recent initiative of adopting of a village/district by our political parties/candidates is a good initiative which can help in channelizing the required manpower for creating those structures.
3) Maximum utilization of the Agriculture land during the year. No idle capacity be left without any use.
Following the best practices of Crop rotation – growing vegetables and other agri-products in between the RABI and KARIF seasons.
Family Problems:
1) Value based traditional/ancient education system needs to be revived where in fundamentals needs to be taught encompassing the importance of life. The major reasons for any family conflict is lack of trust, monitory constrains. Once these reasons are taken care of by strong governance and value based education system farming community will feel empowered and regains the confidence and sense of belongingness will develop to ensure that they don’t commit suicides.
2) Back to basics lessons: Bringing farming community back to spirituality – There used to droughts and loans several centuries backs as well, but there were hardly cased of
suicides then because fundamentally our society and value systems are changing. We need to keep them intact. We need to build a strong faith system in our farming community that government will stand by them. Government can collaborate with organizations like “Art of Living” to bring back our farming community back on the path of divinity and spirituality so that they again start understanding the importance of their life.
Constrains:
The plan is as good and strong as it gets implemented effectively. Lack of proper infrastructure like network connectivity, road/rail connectivity, lacking and unmotivated manpower is a serious constrain.
Not getting proper support from central and state government agencies in timely manner
Choosing wrong fit of people for acting on this implementation plan
Corruption at times acts an hindrance for effective implementation
Siloed approach at time acts as constrain in effective implementation. Lacking coordination between inter-departments/agencies acts as a roadblock too.
Extreme vagaries of Mother nature earth ( constant droughts/flooding) due to global climatic changes acts as limitation
Delays in Project Planning is a constrain resulting in cost and schedule overruns.
How to get maximum enrollment from farmers
By setting up the nationalized Banks/loaning agencies near the campus of Agriculture University so that farmer visit those banks and intern also visit the agriculture universities.
Soil testing facilities at free of cost in those university so that farmers can get best advices on the kind of crops to be grown after testing up their farm soil.
5) State government collaboration with Agri-business companies like Syngneta, Monsanto so that farmers use best qualities of seeds and crop protection practices so as to improve the productivity of their land.
10. CONCLUSIONS:
The trend can be reversed through active participation of the Government in addressing the real issues of the farmers that are driving the m to suicides. Social responsibility also goes a long way to help the famers. The solution to the farmer’s plight should be directed towards enabling the farmers to help themselves and sustain on their own. Temporary through monetary relief would not be the solution. The efforts should be targeted at improving the entire structure of the farmers where in the relief is not given on a drought basis, rather they are taught to overcome their difficulties through their own skills and capabilities.
11. REFERENCES:
1. National Crime Record Bureau Report, 1995 to 2010.
2. DNA, “BT cotton crop washed away in Vidarbha”, DNA Reports.
3. Vidyasagar, R.M. and Chandra, S.K. (2004). Debt trap or suicide trap? Retrieved from:www.countercurrents.org/ glo-shiva050404.htm on Oct. 14, 2007.
4. Muzaffar Assadi (2005), ‘Farmers’ Suicide in India: Agrarian Crisis, Path of Development andPolitics in Karnataka’.
5. Wakude, S. M. (2005),
Farmers suicide in Maharashtra - causes and Remedies.
6. YASHADA (2006), ‘Farmers suicide: facts and possible Policy interventions’.
7. Nagaraj K., (2008), ‘Farmers suicides in India: Magnitudes, Trends and Spatial Patterns, Madras institute of Development Studies.
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💖💖shivani gupta💖💖
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