Farmer Deaths

COMPARED to 10,281 in 2019, the National Crime Records Bureau puts at 10,677 the number of people engaged in the farm sector who died by suicide in 2020. Nearly half of the deaths were of agricultural labourers, an 18 per cent rise from the previous year. Maharashtra, with 4,006 suicides, continues to be the worst affected and Karnataka saw a 43
per cent increase, in a year when the farm sector was one of the few bright spots in the pandemic-hit economy. The
report is silent on what leads to such deaths and no specific causes are indicated. Despite the lack of clarity on distinguishing farmer suicide from death by suicide over reasons that may not be directly related to the occupation,
the numbers only reveal the extent of agrarian distress and its tragic manifestation. Haryana recorded 280 such deaths, all by farm labourers. In Punjab, farm unions have rejected the findings that farm-related suicides have declined, down to 257 from 302 in 2019. They claim the figure would be much higher had there been due diligence in recording such deaths, and not attributing these to other reasons. Much of the argument rests on the findings of a survey by three universities of the state that involved collection of data from 2000 to 2016: a total of 16,606 farmers and agricultural labourers died by suicide. That comes to an average of 1,000 per year. A drastic reduction, the contention is, defies logic in the absence of any change in the underlying conditions.

Andhra Pradesh stood 3rd in number of farmer suicides in the country. A total of 889 people working in the farm sector (farmers, tenant farmers and others) ended their lives in Andhra Pradesh in 2020. Maharashtra had 4,006 farmer suicides while Karnataka came third (2,016).According to secretary of Rythu Swarajya Vedika (RSV), an umbrella association of farmers’ groups and NGOs, farmers who had grown Tomato, Banana, and a few other crops in the Rayalaseema region ended their lives due to poor marketing facilities and incurred losses during Covid. Many leaders of left parties are of the view that successive governments failed to address the farm crisis in the state and the government has been failing to announce profitable prices to various crops also failed to improve the marketing facilities. If the Union and State government implement the Swaminathan committee’s recommendation that a minimum support price (MSP) that is at least 50 per cent above the cost of production be extended to farmers, it will save the farming sector.

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