There is need to establish a National Commission on Famers again not only to find out numbers but to take preventive actions to the extent possible against occurrence of farmers suicide. Action taken report on the earlier Farmers Commission Report needs to be made known. All sorts of atrocities-self-made, money lenders made, alcoholism, public abuse etc etc. needs to be addressed. Farming is projected as an unattractive profession. In Kerala coconut cultivation in homesteads has become unremunerated-no climbers, no takers of harvested nuts and above all bad neighbourhood relations due to fall of nuts destroying others properties. In Punjab wheat straw is burned causing pollution. The drought like situation in major agricultural states induces pauper farmers to think of unthinkable things. The proposed NCA should have powers to implement and help farmers.
What are the agricultural ministries, universities and scientists doing? The Farmers commission report gathers dust while our Parliament adjourns….where are we headed? Why cannot the courts take notice? Are we all so helpless that we can afford to lose famers? We need to treat this as the most important threat to the nation. Farmers cannot prosper because of problems created by the rooted traders Mafia in Agriculture produce marketing. They are worse than the world’s worst cartel. Go from end to end in any city; you will wonder how the same price is being made applicable to the vegetable you buy. It is actually acting in consort by the traders lobby to determine both the prices, logistics and the supplies that will come to market. Only corporate intervention in agriculture marketing will break the trader mafia’s hold.
Farmers are committing suicides mainly because of crop failures due to natural calamities, climate change, lack of infrastructure facilities say transport facilities, so farmers can dispose of their produce in Agriculture market without getting exploited by agents. Twenty four hours water and power facilities, warehouse facilities, high tech farming technology must be provided to them. Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Governor Raghuram Rajan claimed that the ‘complex problem’ of farmer suicides could be arising out of lack of formal finance and not excessive burden of it. “In the last few days, the tragic picture of farmer suicides has emerged. Researchers have found that it is a complicated matter to say why someone will take the extreme step of ending his life. “Farmer suicide is a problem that one should neither take lightly nor offer too easy explanations for”, said Rajan at an interactive session organized by Centre for Research and Industrial Development (CRRID).
Many farmers, who died in the past one month, have died of heart attacks, unable to bear the shock of seeing their healthy crops lying flat under the vagaries of the weather. Livelihood security for any farming family, therefore, hangs by a slender thread. The spate of farmer suicides in the wake of the continuing spell of unseasonal rains is simply a reflection or a symptom of how fragile the farm economy is. Even a small aberration in weather – unseasonal rains, high winds, dry weather and drought – multiplies the risk factor for farmers, taking it to unmanageable levels. World Health Organization figures show India has one of the highest rates of depression in the world. Due to lack of psychiatrists and stigma around mental illness, particularly in rural swathes, many sufferers believe the only way out is to take their own lives.
Maharashtra is by far the epicenter of the crisis, with over 10,000 recorded farm suicides between 2011 and 2013. This year, the Marathwada region alone has seen over 200 farmer suicides in just three months. According to figures from the Ministry of Agriculture, the total of number of suicides committed by farmers for agrarian reasons in the last three years stands at 3313. The five States — Maharashtra, Telangana, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Kerala — accounted for 3301 of them. The numbers of suicide cases by farmers due to agrarian reasons have increased by 26 percent to 1,109 in 2014, with majority of deaths reported from Maharashtra. Nearly 2,25,000 people involved in farming and agriculture killed themselves in India between 2000 and 2013, the latest years for which data is available from the National Crime Records Bureau. Out of 1,109 cases, 986 were reported from Maharashtra, 84 from Telangana and 29 from Jharkhand.
In 2013, 879 farmers had committed suicide, and in 2012 the cases of farmer suicides were 1,046, according to a data shared by the Minister of State for Agriculture Mohanbhai Kundaria in a written reply to the Lok Sabha. Poor farmers are dying because of non-availability of government initiated land acquisition. While Congress-led UPA ( I & II) was in power, BJP adopted tactics like, referring Bills to select-committee, bringing amendments after amendments etc. Neither UPA Bill nor NDA Bill ever got implemented. Farmers were committing suicide even before Modi came to power and they continue to end their lives when he has come to power, nothing has changed their plight. One could add so many arguments to what I have already stated so articulately here, but there won’t be the actual solution to fading farmers of this country……….still we say #JaiKisan ? India is the land of agriculture.
