report from NCRB on farmers suicide: Policy Puzzles Bibek Debroy Farmer suicides: Many other states worse off than Gujarat Lodha® Parkside - Worli theparkmumbai/Book-Now - Launching 2 & 3 Bed Residences at Exclusive Launch Price, Rs 4.05Cr+ Ads by Google Bibek Debroy Thursday March 27, 2014, 10:34 AMinShare Every year, National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) brings out a publication titled “Accidental Deaths & Suicides in India”. NCRB has a very rich database on “crime” and it’s a pity that the database isn’t available in the public domain for research. What’s available is NCRB reports, like the one I have just mentioned, and the last in this series is for 2012. Since suicides have been in the news, let’s focus on those, not accidental deaths. The number of suicides was 135,445 in 2012. Over the last 10 years (since 2002), the suicide rate has only increased marginally from around 10.5 to 11.2 now, probably because of more reporting. 12.5% of those 135,445 suicides occurred in Tamil Nadu, 11.9% in Maharashtra, 11.0% in West Bengal and 10.5% in Andhra Pradesh. Gujarat’s share was 5.2%. These are figures for 2012. However, even if you drag the series back, you will find that some States account for most suicides and these are Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra and Karnataka. Why do people commit suicide? Notice that 25.6% is because of “family problems”, 20.8% because of “illness”, 2.0% because of “bankruptcy or sudden change in economic status” and 1.9% because of “poverty”. While a suicide is tragic, one does need to realize that there are limitations on what any government can do to prevent suicides. What can any government do to prevent the 4,166 suicides that occurred because of “love affairs” and the 9,465 that occurred because of “insanity”? The more interesting table is one that classifies suicide victims by profession. In the present report, you will find it as Table 2.11. I have always been a bit intrigued by the obsession over farmer suicides. Strictly speaking, the heading is “self-employed (farming/agriculture)”. Out of that total of 135,445 suicides in 2012, 13,754 such farmers committed suicides. I hope you don’t interpret this as an attempt to defend farmer suicides. But, however, you define the share of farmers in the population, this 13,754 figure is on the lower side. Why does no one talk about the 23,751 suicides by self-employed people (others) in other sectors? 3,456 self-employed professionals committed suicides. 5,706 self-employed in business committed suicide. Don’t other self-employed also have problems? The entire discourse revolves around farmers. On farmers, of those 13,754 farmers who committed suicide in 2012, 564 were from Gujarat. If one uses this number (instead of tracking down the numbers from each version of NCRB), to extrapolate over a 10-year period, the number of farmers who commit suicides in Gujarat over a 10-year period will be roughly around 5,600. To set matters in perspective, in 2012, 2,572 farmers committed suicide in Andhra Pradesh, 1,875 in Karnataka, 1,081 in Kerala, 1,172 in Madhya Pradesh, 3,786 in Maharashtra, 499 in Tamil Nadu and 745 in Uttar Pradesh. Even if one normalizes for population, Gujarat is not thus a State with a remarkably high share of farmer suicides. There are other States that fare far worse. Even then, why do farmers commit suicides and what can we do to solve the problem? There are different ways to slice the problem. Though there isn’t a neat water-tight difference, there are land-holders and there is agricultural labour (small land-holders also work as agricultural labour). Most suicides have been by land-holders, not by agricultural labour. That’s because farm profitability has been squeezed and input costs have increased. There is thus a long agenda of agricultural and rural sector reforms. More specifically, whether it is a farmer or someone self-employed elsewhere, it’s typically a combination of a credit cum insurance problem. Credit is from the informal segment, with high interest rates and is often driven by an exogenous shock, like a medical emergency. Meanwhile, no satisfactory insurance system exists. The existing crop insurance scheme is not really a proper insurance mechanism. A farmer borrows, commercializes and diversifies. Commercialization and diversification automatically exposes the farmer to greater risk, but there are no risk-mitigating instruments. One can perhaps sustain this for a year, but not when it extends to say, three years. The best thing any government can do is to help farmers reduce the risk. Part of it is through the broader agro/rural reforms I mentioned, the remainder through opening up credit and insurance. It helps if one thinks about matters logically, instead of turning it into an emotive issue.
Posted on: Thu, 27 Mar 2014 14:13:31 +0000