Why Karnataka is second highest in India at farmer suicides

Reading about farmer suicides and not reacting to it has become an issue in itself. Karnataka recorded 3,339 suicides by people engaged in the farming sector. Out of those, 3,181 were men and 158 were women. With this figure, Karnataka recorded the second-highest farmer suicides in the country in 2021, as per the latest NCRB data. The data shows that 16,152 farmers committed suicide across India, with Karnataka accounting for 20.5 per cent of them.

Karnataka also recorded 999 suicide cases of agricultural labourers, ranking second in the country again after Maharashtra, which recorded 1,424 suicide cases by agricultural labourers. The data also shows that the suicide rate is higher among farmers who cultivate their own land in the state. A total of 1,124 cases have been recorded of farmers who cultivated their own land. Out of the 16,152 farmers who committed suicide in India, 5,563 are agricultural labourers. Ahna Prakash deep-dives into this to unearth a story beyond numbers.

What do people have to say?
Farmers’ rights activist and founder of Kisanputra Andolan Amar Habib, who holds a fast every year in remembrance of the first farmer suicide in 1986, says that policies by the government are forcing farmers to commit suicide. “The BJP government is executing the same policies that were introduced by Congress; they have not changed anything. And this is the main reason why so many farmers are committing suicide. There are three laws: the first one is Agricultural Land Holding Act, under which farmers’ lands are scattered in small holdings, the second one is Essential Commodities Act due to which farmers are not able to get the actual price for their product, and the third one is the Land Acquisition Act. These three laws are the basic cause of farmer suicides,” said Amar Habib.
He also added that increasing farmer suicides should be taken as a matter of national emergency.
While some farmer leaders like Kodihalli Chandrasekhar say that farmers in Karnataka are stuck in the “killer” moneylender trap.

“Rain and flooding destroyed all the produce of the farmers. Due to this, their earnings dropped considerably. Most of them end up taking loans from local moneylenders and if the flooding continues, they won’t be able to pay back the loan. In rural Karnataka, most farmers are exploited and harassed by moneylenders and they end up committing suicide,” said Chandrasekhar.
Leaders like Yogendra Yadav say that the government should ensure a minimum support price (MSP) for farm produce. “Farmer suicide is a very serious issue, and the government is unfortunately not willing to talk them about it. Farmers not being able to get even a bare minimum price for the crop they painstakingly produce is just not right. The Union government needs to pass a strong bill to ensure MSP to every farmer,” said Yogendra.

However, many activists have also questioned the way the government and NCRB are sourcing the data.
“Before 2015, there was separate data of farmer suicides, but the Modi regime stopped recording separate data of the deaths. We (farmer activists) have asked the government to start collecting data separately, but nothing has been done,” said Habib.

Comparative numbers
This data comes after Agriculture Minister BC Patil in March 2022 claimed that farmer suicides in the state has come down “drastically”. The minister claimed in the Assembly that farmer suicides in the state came down from 1,062 in 2015-16 to 268 in 2021-22. However, when we look at the NCRB data of 2020, farmer suicide cases in Karnataka have not seen a significant decrease in 2021. In fact, the number increased by 251 cases from the preceding year. In 2020, 3,088 people involved in farming committed suicide in Karnataka, the second highest in the country after Maharashtra. Even for agricultural labourers, in 2020 Karnataka recorded 944 suicides of agricultural laborers that increased to 999 in 2021.

Insensitive remark
KB Koliwad, the former Assembly speaker, faced criticism with his “insensitive” remark over farmer 
suicides.Koliwad received a phone call during a meeting from the family of a dead farmer, Paramesh Nayak. A video of Koliwad surfaced on the internet talking rudely to t