Why Are Farmer Suicide Rates So High in India ? ƒ

1. The Global Perspective on Farmers’ Suicides:ƒ The suicide rate for farmers throughout the world is higher than for the non-farming population. ƒ In the Midwest of the U.S. suicide rates among male farmers are twice that of the general population. ƒ In Britain farmers are taking their own lives at a rate of one a week. ƒ In India, one farmer committed suicide every 32 minutes between 1997 and 2005. 
2. It's official known now that India has seen over a quarter of a million farmers’ suicides between 1995 and 2010. The National Crime Records Bureau’s latest report on ‘Accidental Deaths & Suicides in India’ places the number for 2010 at 15,964. That brings the cumulative 16-year total from 1995 — when the NCRB started recording farm suicide data — to 2,56,913, the worst-ever recorded wave of suicides of this kind in human history.All over the world the impact of an industrial approach to boosting crop yields has stripped many small farmers of their self-sufficiency and thrown them into despair.Even So, Why Are Farmer Suicide Rates So High? ƒ 
3. Financial Stress - constant financial pressure related to the “Farm Crisis” and ongoing drought and flood which add to the economic problems ƒ Loss of independence and control : 
4. Many of the issues are not within the farmer’s control – disease, weather, government policy, but the debts are personal.
5. Sense of Loss: repeated sense of hopelessness, loss of crops, loss of land, loss of income, loss of community, loss of family farm, loss of a way of life ƒ Geographical remoteness and the potential for social isolation.
6. Untreated Mental Illness: Lack of access to mental health services in rural areas and the stigma attached to treatment ƒ Depression arising from exposure to agricultural chemicals/pesticides may increase the risk for mood disorders and ultimately suicide

India Honest wishes that the political leadership, the economist, the Agrarian, the farming community leaders now have to ponder deeply on this persistent problem related to lives and livelihood of millions of people,and they have to find  why the farming, one time family passion, has failed to become a family business in course of time, worth giving them a dignified livelihood?

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