AGRARIAN DISTRESS AND FARMERS SUICIDE IN INDIA

PRESENTED BY: 34015

Ashwin Abrahim
Parag Somani 34034
Prasoon P 34035
Shivee Bhardwaj 34045
Suman Khanchandani 34052
AGRARIAN DISTRESS
 India,60% of people depending directly or indirectly
on agriculture.
 Attributed as gambling with monsoons because of its
almost exclusive dependency on precipitation
from monsoons but it has remained traditionally the most
important economic activity in our country
 It is also fairly well known that the agricultural sector has
gone through crisis in the past few years and is a subject of
widespread discussion in recent years
 Agrarian distress is not something new, but the suicides
associated with it are.
 It has been felt that the present crisis is the
result of:
 Deflationary public policies and trade liberalization.
 The changing nature of agriculture and democratic
politics.
 The cultivation is becoming an unrewarding occupation.
 The growing disparities of wealth between the rural and
urban areas.
 The inability of farmers to unite and bring pressure on the
governments and a disjuncture between the interests of the
farmers and those of the political representatives, have all
led to the neglect of agriculture and deterioration in the
condition of farmers.
AGRARIAN DISTRESS DURING BRITISH
ERA
 Earlier, farmers in distress might have become dacoits or rebels, but
never did we hear that they committed suicides.
 Agrarian distress starts with colonization of India the East India

Company around 1760.

 Their system of extortionate land tax, combined with forcing farmers

to grow cash crops chiefly indigo and cotton on the best lands and not
paying appropriate price for the produce.
 The colonial system of land use led to frequent collapse of India’s

farms resulting in food shortage, famine, mass deaths, destruction of

fertile lands, and destruction of age-old symbiotic system of farming,
animal husbandry, and forestry.
 It was the agrarian distress among the farming community that led

them to join the national movement against the ruling class and the
British at that time.
 POST- INDEPENDENCE ERA
 After the independence, during the green revolution it made
the farming community heavily dependent on the HYV seeds,
the new pesticides and fertilizers, etc and the cultivation of
single crop under market pressure led to decreased social
security.
 Post liberalization, reduction in state support for agriculture
and import restrictions.
 Growth rates are primarily based on service sector; nothing to
do with people involved in agriculture.
 Agriculture income declined without decline in population
dependent on agriculture .
 Shift in the cropping pattern from staple crop to cash crops like
oilseeds and cotton, requiring high investment in modern inputs
and wage labour.
 Vicious cycle of indebtedness - keep on borrowing and investing
in cash crops with the hope of better returns next year. 
SOCIAL FACTORS
 Rapid changes in last two decades.
 Change in lifestyles, thanks to media.
 Education became important.
 Health consciousness.
 Public expenditure on health less than 1% of
GDP and 73% of all health expenditure
financed by people.
 Cost of survival goes up.
SOCIAL FACTORS
 It is not just poverty that kills them.
 Studies shows that poor are less inclined to kill
themselves.
 Those who lead a better life or is expected to lead a
better life but fails to do so due to some circumstances
are more prone to mental depression and suicides. 
 The fear of losing land (ancestoral), social status, pride,
etc.
 Breakup of joint families.
ECOLOGICAL FACTORS
 Human induced rather than natural.
 Declining quality of land and water resources.
 Excessive use of pesticides making pest resistive
to them.
 Higher input cost.
POLITICAL FACTORS
 The farmer’s interests subsided by caste, regional interests.
 The populist policies of 70's and 80's led the shrinking of
political space.
 Harder to organize farming community as they become
less homogeneous, both economically and socially. 
 Their leaders moved in cities and became identified with it.
 No Pan-India peasant movement in the last two decades.
 Agriculture and irrigations are state subjects but union
government has all the funds.
 Union decides on imports/exports, trade tariffs, and there
the voice of farmers is the weakest. 
POLITICAL FACTORS
 Public investment in agriculture has declined
from 4 per cent of agriculture GDP in early
1980s to 1.5 per cent in early 2000s
 POLITICAL FACTORS
The total revenue foregone for Corporate taxpayers:
Year Rs. (in Crore)
2010-11 88,263
2011-12 61,675
2012-13 68,007

•The one-time agriculture loan write-off, 2008 = Rs. 60,000

cr.
ECONOMIC FACTORS
 Neo-liberal policies, market driven rather than
state driven. 
 The market decides for itself and hence
increase in prices of seeds, fertilizers,
pesticides, etc.
 The change from food crops to cash crops.
 Everything except farm land and cultivation
process controlled by corporates
WHY DO GOVTS INTERVENE
 To make sure that enough food is produced to meet the country’s
needs
 To shield farmers from the effects of the weather and swings in
world prices
 To preserve rural society
 The policies have often been expensive
 Created gluts leading to export subsidy wars
 Countries with less money for subsidies have suffered
 Whether these objectives can be met without distorting
trade(quantities and prices higher or lower than the competitive
ideal values)
SUBSIDIES

Subsidies given in developed countries(US and

EU):

 Restrict access to developing countries’ exports

 Distorts the world food prices
 Poses threat to domestic livelihoods and food
securities in developing countries by depressing
domestic food prices
SUBSIDIES
 Two kinds of domestic supports:
 Non trade distorting support/subsidies(Support with no or
minimal effects on trade and levels of production)
 Trade distorting support/subsidies
 Ceiling amount to be decided for developed countries for
trade distorting support
 Green box subsidies are believed to affect production through
different laws of economics
 Hence profits undermined by capping trade distorting support
can be balanced by no ceiling on non trade distorting support
MARKET ACCESS
 Developed countries claim cut down on tariff rates
by developing countries
 If done so, livelihoods of thousands of farmers in
danger
 SSM(Special Safeguard mechanism): To impose
additional tariffs when faced with surge of imports
or cheap imports
 Export subsidies: limits on spending and quantities
GM CROPS
 Genetically modified crops
 Farmers adopt Monsanto’s BT Cotton so that they
need not use pesticides
 However, pest resistant quality fades away
 Now farmers have to buy Monsanto’s pesticides
 New seeds every year
 Costly seeds, pesticides and low market price
leading to farmer’s despair and hopelessness
GM CROPS
 GMO crop failure
 Globalization: MNC likes Monsanto and Dupont
 Threat to environment and human’s health
 Monopoly
 Farmer’s suicide
 World wide control of seeds
 Consumers cannot boycott foreign biotech companies
as they provide millions of dollars to the corrupt
politicians to follow anti labelling policy
Accord to Sainath, in the six years between
2004 and 2009 ):
total suicide: 720,528
total farmer suicide: 102,628
% of farmer suicide: 102,628/720,528*100=14.24%
 National Crime Records
Bureau disaggregated data
on suicides for 2011:
Service sector suicides : 11.4%
Agriculture sector suicide: 10.3%
SUICIDE MORTALITY RATE (SMR)
FOR MALE FARMERS AND NON-
FARMERS
20

18

16
SMR

14

12

10
1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006

Farmers Non-Farmers

26
ALARMING STATISTICS

 About 1 lakh farmers have committed suicides in the

last decade

 About 17 lakh farmers are under the condition of

distress

 75% farmers live on break-even or loss every year

 Less than 50% deaths are officially reported as deaths

due to agrarian distress – women deaths are not
included

27
 The Way Forward
…caring for those who feed
the nation

 Technological Development in Agricultural Sector

 Agrarian Crisis and the Social System
 Primary Sector and Macro Economics
 Improvisation of Livelihood Systems
AGRARIAN CRISIS AND THE SOCIAL SYSTEM

 Caste
 Education

 Health
 Population Control

 Gender Equality

 Control of Urban Migration

MALTHUSIAN THEORY OF POPULATION
PRIMARY SECTOR AND MACRO ECONOMICS

 Institutional Credit and Banking

 Insurance

 Subsidies

 Waiver of interest and loans in crisis hit areas

 Strengthening the monetary system with a pro-primary sector

approach
 Equitable distribution of resources and an equitable
redistribution of wealth
 Implementation of FDI along with creation of a strong
manufacturing sector as forward linkage
VICIOUS CYCLE OF POVERTY
TECHNOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENT IN
AGRICULTURE
 Heavy investment in R&D
 Access of technology to all sections of the society

 Detailed analysis about the pros and cons of using Genetically

Modified crops
 Heavy investment on infrastructure

 Creating a strong manufacturing sector so that the forward and

backward linkages with the agriculture sector is safely insulated
 “Modernization” not “Westernization
IMPROVISATION OF LIVELIHOOD SYSTEMS

Strategies- Community Level

 Building cohesive communities

 Collective planning and collective sourcing
 Co-operative Farming
 Disaster management teams
Strategies- Individual Level

 Increasing productivity
 Improving the work efficiency of farmers and laborers
 Increasing price realization
 Additional income generating activities

Strategies- Sustainability
 Farmers Institutions
 Knowledge based extension programs
 Using ICT tools
 Convergence with ongoing government programs
 Showcasing the success stories
MODEL AGRARIAN ECONOMIC SCENARIO
 The share of agriculture credit in total bank lending nearly
doubled from 10% in the 1970’s to 18% in the late 1980’s.
 The share of agricultural credit in total bank lending
declined from its peak of 18% in the late 1980’s to about
11% in 2007.
 Rural branches of commercial banks have declined from
51.2% in March 1996 to 45.7 in March 2007.
 Data also shows that the proportion of agricultural credit
cornered by farm sizes of more than 5 acres has increased
 Tenancy is informal and tenant farmers do not get access
to credit

(GOI Report, 2009)