How Climate Change has Aggravated the Issue of Farmer Suicides in India

By Vivek Saini 

India is an agrarian country with around 60% of its people depending directly or indirectly upon agriculture. Suicides in agricultural areas have been a persistent problem in the country since the 1970s, as farmers face mounting debt. According to new research, the climate catastrophe has increased the number of farmers who commit suicide in India. The report, which was released on May 10, 2023, focused on five states with especially high suicide rates: Chhattisgarh, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, and Telangana.

Agriculture: Economic backbone of India 

India’s economy is based mostly on agriculture, which is heavily influenced by the environment. A very important factor in agricultural productivity is climate. The agricultural sector has consistently been a significant source of meeting the fundamental needs of the Indian population. Indian agriculture has suffered greatly over the past two decades as a result of the intensified use of green reconstruction components and climate changes. And as a result, during the past two decades, crop productivity, crop yield, and soil nutrient levels have all steadily declined in India. Global warming is a factor in the current climate changes.

India is an agrarian country, with agriculture providing a living for more than half of the population. Aside from the escalating number of farmer suicides throughout large parts of the country, millions of primarily small-scale farmers have been strained by dropping crop prices and increased transportation and storage expenses.

Poor earnings of the farmers led to the never-ending distress in the agricultural sector and this resulted in the increasing

number of farmer suicides.

According to the “Drought in Numbers” report by the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), the climate catastrophe has lowered India’s GDP by 2% – 5% over the last 20 years.

Climate change factors affecting the agriculture sector

When compared to other developing nations, Indian agriculture is strongly dependent on the monsoon, which severely limits crop diversification. Thus, a weak monsoon or even a delayed monsoon, poor soil fertility, pests and plant diseases, crop perishability, and other factors are key causes of agrarian misery in India. Furthermore, climate change and global warming produce regular drought and flood disasters, adding to their hardships.

Climate change scenarios include: increased temperatures, altered precipitation patterns, and higher atmospheric CO2 concentrations, which may have an impact on crop yields (both quantity and quality), growth rates, rates of photosynthesis and transpiration, moisture availability, and changes in water use (irrigation) and agricultural inputs like herbicides, insecticides, and fertilizers, among other things. Agricultural production may also be impacted by other environmental factors such as soil drainage intensity and frequency (which can result in nitrogen leaching), soil erosion, land availability, and reduced crop diversity.

According to IIED data, periods of below-average rainfall that result in drought conditions are to blame for the rise in farmer suicides in rural India. The results should function as a warning for the global agriculture industry, which is directly affected by the growing effects of climate change.

What’s the linkage between climate and farmer suicides? 

Nearly 60% of the population of India, a nation of almost 1.4 billion people, relies on agriculture for a living, yet they are still forced to commit suicide. Every year, to irrigate the parched land, farmers take out loans, get caught in a vicious circle of debt, and ultimately commit suicide. 

It is anticipated that as the earth warms, the effects of climate change on Indian farmers would become more severe. India is the nation most at risk of having crop production decline owing to the climate catastrophe, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). 

Farmers often feel helpless, anxious, and depressed after seeing years of diligent effort devastated by unpredictable weather disasters. Despair is a sensation often linked to suicide. Farmers are among the most at risk categories in India for suicide, with 15.08% of the country’s recorded suicides occurring in 2021. To explore the linkage, researchers looked at data from Chhattisgarh, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, and Telangana collected year over year. For all five states, data spanning the years 2014–15 to 2020–21 revealed a negative connection, indicating that the suicide rate is consistently higher in years with a rainfall deficit. For instance, in a year with a 5% deviation from average rainfall, 810 farmers on average committed suicide. The document stated: “Based on the predicted values of our regression modelling for a rainfall deficit of 25%, the annual suicide rate among farmers would rise to 1,188 individuals.”

Farmers are more extensively engaged in cotton farming in states with the highest suicide rates, which demands major investment in seed, pesticide, and insecticide, leading farmers to borrow money from formal and informal sources. Farmers cannot make repayments if the cotton crop fails due to drought or unpredictable rainfall. This cash crop dominance has exacerbated the agrarian problem. Small-scale farmers are more likely to commit suicide as a result of it. Hundreds of farmers committed suicide in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh in 2021 and 2022 when a pest called Thrips parvispinus ruined their chilli harvest. Union minister Narendra Singh Tomar told Parliament that changes in weather circumstances throughout the agricultural season could be to blame for the pest’s proliferation.

Ritu bharadwaj, principal researcher at International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) said, “Climate change is making agriculture an extremely risky, potentially dangerous and loss-making endeavour for farmers, and it’s increasing their risk of suicide.” 

Government’s take on the farmer’s suicides due to climate change

The Supreme Court emphasised in 2017 that it is the government’s duty to prevent farmers from committing suicide when they are distressed due to crop loss. “It is the responsibility of executive governments to ensure that such incidents must not occur,” the panel ruled. The policy for farmers’ welfare must be put into practise locally. Governments should adopt a preventative strategy rather than a compensating one. The central government has implemented a number of initiatives in recent years, including:

1. Soil Health Card Scheme
2. Neem Coated Urea (NCU) 
3. PM Fasal Bima Yojana (PMFBY)
4. PM Krishi Sinchai Yojana (PMKSY)
5. Electronic National Agriculture Market (e-NAM)
6. Paramparagat Krishi Vikas Yojana  (PKVY)
7. Interest Subvention Scheme (ISS)

Ineffectiveness of the Government:

However, Despite being intended to safeguard farmers, government purchase at the minimum support price (MSP) primarily helps large dealers. Due to a lack of government market participation, more than 70% of Indian farmers hardly ever earn MSPs. Additionally, the Public Distribution System (PDS) lacks the capability to conduct procurement procedures for the 24 crops for which MSP is declared.

Subsidies for things like power and fertilizer, input costs have been rising faster than sales prices, which has squeezed the small farmers’ meager income and left them in debt. Additionally, the cost of recruiting laborers and animals has increased, and there has also been an increase in fixed prices related to agricultural machinery like tractors and submersible pumps.

Large post-harvest losses are caused by inadequate cold chain-storage facilities, and processing capacity. The price of the produce is uncertain, which is a serious worry. Numerous farmers are still at the whim of the trader.

Additionally unfavorable are the Agricultural Produce Market Committees (APMCs), which require farmers to sell their products through auctions in regulated markets run by cartels of authorized traders. These cartels impose cheap purchasing prices, demand high commissions, postpone payments, and other practices.

References:

1. https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Farmers-Suicide-and-Response-of-the-Government-in-Parvathamma/e54bd6124eb91a24aa6d14b776daefca89a1f1e9
2. https://www.unccd.int/sites/default/files/2022-05/Drought%20in%20Numbers.pdf
3. https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/document?repid=rep1&type=pdf&doi=2ca80dfb4d19709246e14e00ed2e308162f76c67
4. https://www.iied.org/climate-change-driving-increase-farmer-suicides-india#:~:text=Evidence%20from%20five%20states%20shows%20number%20of%20suicides%20increases%20in%20drought%20years.&text=Periods%20of%20below%20average%20rainfall,according%20to%20analysis%20from%20IIED.
5. https://www.ipcc.ch/srccl/chapter/chapter-5/
6. https://www.newindianexpress.com/states/telangana/2022/feb/05/invasive-thrips-caused-80-damage-to-chilli-crops-rs-told-2415514.html
7. https://www.independent.co.uk/climate-change/news/india-farmer-suicide-heatwave-drought-b2335830.html 
8. https://www.indiatimes.com/amp/explainers/news/600-farmers-have-died-by-suicide-this-year-so-far-why-it-doesnt-stop-578047.html
9. https://pib.gov.in/Pressreleaseshare.aspx?PRID=1496069
10. https://www.jsscacs.edu.in/sites/default/files/Files/Farmer_suicide.pdf

Image source: https://pixabay.com/photos/farmer-wheat-crop-agriculture-2260636/