Small farmers most prone to suicide, show govt data

STORIES IN NUMBERS

Development Studies, Bhubaneswar, and who has devoted years to the study of the Indian agrarian crisis, said, “The data needs to be studied further for a proper comment. But, in a general sense, farmers who have alternate sources of livelihood (including as agricultural labourers) may cope with the crisis better when compared to those who may depend almost entirely on farming; relatively speaking, this may be one of the factors separating the marginal from the small farmers.

“Also, farmers who are enterprising and have seen success can find it difficult to handle (the situation) when things fail. Statistics may also not be completely reflecting the complexity of the problem. The data on large farmers says they make up 2% of farmer suicides. That is almost twice their share in farmer population!”

Out of 2,195 suicides committed by “Marginal Farmers”, 834 were reported in Maharashtra and 354 in Chhattisgarh, accounting for 38% and 16% of the total.

Among suicides committed by “Small Farmers” — the largest group among victims of farmer suicides — Maharashtra (1,285 out of 3,618) again topped with a 35.5% share, followed by Karnataka (751 out of 3,618) which accounted for 20% of such suicides.

A total of 160 “Large Farmers” committed suicides in 2015. Telangana, with 79 such suicides, accounted for almost half the numbers. Chhattisgarh was a distant second with 37 suicides by large farmers.

Among the states with the worst figures of farmer suicides, Chhattisgarh stood out as the only one where more marginal farmers (354) committed suicide than small farmers (310). In most other states, suicide figures for small farmers were more than double that of marginal farmers.

Suicides among medium farmers were almost comparable to those among marginal farmers, with Chhattisgarh again being an exception. Against 354 marginal farmer suicides in the state, there were only 154 medium farmer suicides. NEXT: WHAT IS DRIVING AGRICULTURAL

LABOURERS TO SUICIDE?