An Overview of Farmers Suicide in India

India is a developing country and After China it is considered as one of the fastest developing nation of the world. Further, it is an agrarian country with around 48.9% of its people depending directly or indirectly upon agriculture. Nowadays the problem of farmers‟ suicides is one of the vital concerns that need to be addressed by the Government. As many as 5,650 Indian farmers committed suicide in 2014, or 15 farmers a day, according to data from the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB). Days after attributing the record number of farmer suicides in 2015 to poor disbursement of credit, which left them at the mercy of usurious money lenders, the Centre on Tuesday shared with Parliament grim statistics highlighting how the situation remains unchanged in 2016. There is a wide array of factors that has led to the increasing spate of farmer suicides in India. The lands are not as productive as before, the markets are failing, the debts are piling up, and the pests cannot be kept at bay. More than an economic problem, this has now assumed political and humanitarian dimensions, especially since the past decade. More than 80% of the Indian farmers are marginal land owners and they are economically poor. So they are facing economical problems for successful running of agricultural activities. In addition to this, the farmers has their family responsibilities like education, marriages and health provisions of their family members and children, which requires huge money. The burden of these entire things turns them towards suicides. The fertilizers and pesticides that they use are of a poor quality. All these factors often lead to complete loss of crops. Quite often it so happens that the better quality seeds are so expensive that the small and medium farmers cannot buy them. As far as manure is concerned, most small farmers and peasants have to use cow dung, which is an effective one. However, the problem for them is that this cow dung is used as fuel too, which means that not enough cow dung is available for all. Chemical fertilizers are mostly out of bounds for the poor farmers. Prevention of crop failure should be the primary aim of the Government. In most cases, it is not the lack of water but the lack of proper management on the government's part that causes water shortage. at organic manure is highly necessary to make sure that soil stays healthy. the farmers could be helped to shift to the cultivation of crops that would be easy and economical to cultivate in adverse conditions. Agriculture should be approached professionally and not as a traditional occupation. The solution to the farmer's plight should be directed towards enabling the farmers to help themselves and sustain on their own. Temporary measures through monetary relief would not be the solution.