Abstract:
Indian agriculture today is under a large crisis. An average farmer household’s
returns from cultivation would be around one thousand rupees per month. The
incomes are inadequate and the farmer is not in a position to address the multitude of
risks: weather, credit, market and technology among others. Social responsibility of
education, healthcare and marriage instead of being normal activities add to the
burden. All these would even put the semi-medium farmer under a state of transient
poverty. The state of the vast majority of small and marginal farmers and agricultural
labourers is worse off. An extreme form of response to this crisis is the increasing
incidence of farmers’ suicides. In such situations, employment programmes can
provide some succour to the agricultural labourers and also perhaps to the marginal
and small farmers. The least that one can expect from such programmes is rentseeking.
Some recent evidences indicate that one can develop institutions to address
this. It is this that gives a glimmer of hope in the larger story of distress, despair and
death.
Incidentally, this paper provides some estimates from National Sample Survey (NSS)
region wise information on returns to cultivation and on some aspects of farmers’
indebtedness based on the 33rd schedule 59th round survey of 2003. It provides suicide
mortality rate for farmers, non-farmers and age-adjusted population across states of
India from 1995-2004.
