Agricultural Crisis and Farmers Suicides

Agriculture sector plays an essential role in the process of economic development. Agriculture sector in India accounts for 15.9 percent of GDP and provides employment to around 49 percent of the population. The agriculture sector is a leading sector that needs a relook and reinvention. It is the time that India marches towards a 'millennium agricultural transformation' advancing from traditional agricultural system (labour intensive) to contemporary agribusiness system (capital & technology intensive). Seventy percent of the farmers in India are small and marginal. They are forced to borrow money not only for agriculture purposes but also for day to day requirements. The amount so borrowed has not been utilized for the purchase of new technological equipments or for asset building which could have generated incremental income. Due to this, these farmers can't repay the loans in time and farmers' indebtedness grows. Political parties used agriculture loan waiver as a political strategy. There was no evidence of investment and productivity of loan waiver beneficiaries because institutional credit facilities were not available to them. Hence, farmers have to depend on non-institutional credit. Thus, due to such credit, farmers become debt trapped and driven to poverty. There is no way to come out from debt because poverty had deeply affected the families of small and marginal farmers which results in farmers' suicides. They saw no future for their children, except to be born into debt and die in greater debt. Attempt has been made in the study to analyze the causes of agricultural crisis and farmers suicides.