Farmer suicides

 

Farmer suicide is a serious problem in some Indian states which requires immediate attention so that a farmer’s suicide should stop immediately.

Farmer suicide account for almost 12 % of all suicides in India.

As much as Nos. of the suicide of farmers is concerned, Maharashtra is at number one. In addition to Maharashtra, Telangana, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, and Chhattisgarh are having a lot of suicides.  Around 15500 suicide cases were reported in the last 6 years.

Why Farmers are taking this extreme step?

A lot of studies have happened on this subject and the entire intellectual are on the agreement that poor government policies are responsible for this situation. The allegation is also that Government is not acknowledging this issue due to their electoral compulsions. No Government wants to see their image tarnish due to the news of farmer suicides, which will put the government in a bad light and may lose a big chunk of the voter base.

Some of the other reason for this problem is high debt burden and corruption in subsidies and not getting good prices for the crop.

Rural studies show that this problem is deep-rooted and taking place all over India. Farmers are facing the problem of lack of irrigation facilities, fragmentation of land, and non-availability of credit.

Most of the Indian farmers are depending on natural climatic conditions therefore they always depend on the mercy of God.

The government of India s long-standing policy on agricultural products is the faulty one and favor non-farmers. As per the long-standing government policy price of agriculture must be regulated and the general public should get agricultural produce at minimum price.

Although the income of farmers is regulated the cost of production is increasing day by day. Prices of Seeds and other agricultural implements are rocket soaring and the situation is reached to such a scale that many farmers are even not able to recover money what they spent to grow that crop. Moreover unpredictability of climate conditions making farming in India riskier. There are several occasions when the standing crop was destroyed due to heavy rain and hail storm.

Government of India implements an insurance scheme but surprisingly it is not reached to many farmers. Very few people opted for it.

In India agricultural production has increased to many folds but in spite of bumper crop price realization for agricultural produce is not up to the mark basically due to government s standard policy that citizens of the country especially city people must get agricultural commodities at lower prices to maintain electoral vote base.

 

 

How to solve the problems of Farmers?

1.  We have to remove the dependence of Indian agriculture which is largely depending on climatic conditions. More irrigation facilities and more storage facilities are needed to provide.

2.  More credit is requiring to be provided to farmers.

3.  Quality seeds should be provided to farmers so that more quantity and good quality to be produced.

4. Manure and fertilizers needed to be provided to farmers at minimum prices.

5.  Mechanization of agriculture is the need of the time.

 

 

6. Agricultural Marketing – This needed total overhauling so that farmers have the option to sell his crop where ever he gets good prices for his produce.

To stop the case of the suicide in India it is needed of the time that prices of agricultural produce must be finalized as per the cost of production. The farmer must at least get double the price of the production cost of agriculture produce.