Title: Farmers' suicides in India - Wikipedia
Headings: Farmers' suicides in India
Farmers' suicides in India
Contents
History
States affected
Reasons
Government economic policy
GM crops
Misdirection of government subsidies and funds
Deadly drought
Suicide idea
Debt
Maddy's government field surveys
Statistics
Farmer suicides in the Indian states (2012)
Farmer suicides rate per 100,000 people in the state (2012)
Farmer suicides as a % of total suicides in the state (2012)
All India figures for Farmer suicides from 1995 to 2016
Farmers versus other professions
Total number of farmers
Responses to farmers' suicides
2006 relief package
Agricultural debt waiver and debt relief scheme, 2008
Regional initiatives
Maharashtra Bill to regulate farmer loan terms, 2008
Maharashtra Relief Package, 2010
Kerala Farmers' Debt Relief Commission (Amendment) Bill, 2012
2013 diversify income sources package
Effectiveness of government response
International comparison
In popular culture
See also
References

Content: A 2012 study, did a regional survey on farmers' suicide in rural Vidarbha ( Maharashtra) and applied a Smith's Saliency method to qualitatively rank the expressed causes among farming families who had lost someone to suicide. The expressed reasons in order of importance behind farmer suicides were – debt, alcohol addiction, environment, low produce prices, stress and family responsibilities, apathy, poor irrigation, increased cost of cultivation, private money lenders, use of chemical fertilizers and crop failure. In other words, debt to stress and family responsibilities were rated as significantly higher than fertilizers and crop failure. In a different study in the same region in 2006, indebtedness (87%) and deterioration in the economic status (74%) were found to be major factors for suicide. Studies dated 2004 through 2006, identified several causes for farmers suicide, such as insufficient or risky credit systems, the difficulty of farming semi-arid regions, poor agricultural income, absence of alternative income opportunities, a downturn in the urban economy which forced non-farmers into farming, and the absence of suitable counseling services. In 2004, in response to a request from the All India Biodynamic and Organic Farming Association, the Mumbai High Court required the Tata Institute to produce a report on farmer suicides in Maharashtra, and the institute submitted its report in March 2005. The survey cited "government's lack of interest, the absence of a safety net for farmers and lack of access to information related to agriculture, as the chief causes for the desperate condition of farmers in the state." An Indian study conducted in 2002, indicated an association between victims engaging in entrepreneurial activities (such as venturing into new crops, cash crops, and following market trends) and their failure in meeting expected goals due to a range of constraints. Government economic policy
Economists like Utsa Patnaik, Jayati Ghosh, and Prabhat Patnaik suggest that structural changes in the macro-economic policy of the Indian Government that favored privatization, liberalization, and globalization are the root cause of farmer suicides. Business economists dispute this view.