Suicides Of Farmers And Cotton Cultivation In India

An attempt is made in this paper to study the phenomenon of suicides of farmers in the country in the background of domestic and trade liberalisation and in a macro economic perspective by studying the changes brought about in the cultivation of cotton crop. This paper argues that it is necessary to study all the policies- agricultural, industrial, employment and social welfare and their impact on the farming community. Meaningful conclusions and possible corrective measures can be derived through that process only. The erstwhile prosperous states of Andhra Pradesh and Punjab recorded large number of suicides of farmers followed by Karnataka, Maharashtra, and Gujarat. The phenomenon is widespread and cannot be dismissed as either isolated or one-off events. Further, farmers, committing suicides is an ongoing process. These suicides can be traced back to mid-eighties. Majority of the victims were from small farmers, workforce age group and dry land cultivators and growers of cotton. At least a third of them are tenant-cum-owner cultivators. Crop failure and indebtedness emerge as the main and causative factors, while social and psychological factors are precipitant in nature. The expected prices and income were not obtained for more than 50 percent of the farmers. Exports of cotton were liberalized since 1989-90 and continued since then. Imports were totally liberalized in 1994 by placing under Open General License (OGL). This has led to the percolating of price uncertainty in the international market to the cotton farmers of the country. Farm harvest prices had almost doubled in Andhra Pradesh, Punjab, Karnataka and Gujarat in the first five years of nineties. Large numbers of farmers entered cotton cultivation when prices are increasing in anticipation of huge profits. Failure of chemical control, rising rental values of land, depleting ground water, popularization of hybrids, rise in money wages, hike in fertilizer, power, diesel and interest rates contributed to the large increase in costs of cultivation. The farm harvest prices started declining after 1994-95. There is crisis in the cultivation of cotton even in the mid-eighties. Sharper decline in absolute productivity, price uncertainty due to trade liberalisation and rise in costs due to domestic liberalisation, decline in credit and non-farm work intensified the crisis. The cultivators of cotton seem to be net losers in this process of liberalisation. The policy of counter cyclical export, import, export tariffs, increase in research efforts, adoption of IPM measures by stepping up extension efforts, organic farming, comprehensive insurance cover to take care of price risk also, liberalisation of tenancy laws are the possible solutions.