In the recent past, there has been a wave of farmer suicides in different states of the country. The Supreme Court had earlier asked the Centre to review the farm policy in view of suicides by thousands of farmers.
Even after the Central government announced a multi-crore relief package for the farmers in June, 2006, suicides in the Vidarbha region of Maharashtra have been rising at an alarmingly rate. 1280 debt-ridden Vidarbha farmers committed suicide between July, 2006 and early May, 2007.

During the last 10 years, over 18,000 farmers committed suicide. 40,000 farmers in Panjab killed themselves between 1988 and 2006 with an average of over 2,000 per year. Over 8,000 farmers committed suicide in seven states between 2003 and 2007. Andhra Pradesh tops the list, followed by Vidarbha in Maharashtra, Karnataka, Panjab and Kerala.

Other states include Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh. These distressed farmers could not stand the impact of natural calamities and were unable to repay loans.

Farmers in Punjab now feel that farming is no longer profitable. Rural indebtness, the failure of crops due to either the supply of spurious fertilisers and pesticides or due to unseasonal rains, hailstorms or drought have contributed to these tragedies.

The liberalised import of farm products  have had an adverse effect on domestic growers. To check such distressing events, and to help the farming community, the government had made certain policy changes. Restrictions on storage, sale and movement of food and agro-products were removed.

It also decided to remove export controls, and to build cold storages & rural godowns. But these steps proved ineffective in checking these tragic events.

An economist suggested that farmers have a planned income package. Also, a sustainable agriculture process may help in preventing farmer suicides.

To alleviate the misery of farmers, the government is now examining certain proposals to formulate changes in farm policy to include expansion of the formal credit system, to lower interest rate on crops loans to four per cent, and to waive off interest on loans during calamities.

The government is also formulating a scheme of Rs 14,000 crore to revive the cooperative sector in rural India.
The agro policy earlier envisaged an annual growth of over four per cent. It provided a comprehensive crop insurance for farmers from sowing to post-harvest operations to protect their interests.

In the past, the rich and progressive farmers were beneficiaries as a result of which the disparity between the rich and poor farmers increased manifold. These poor farmers took loans to stay abreast with those rich. But the failure of their crops made them miserable.

Also, agricultural development in the state generated insufficient opportunities for employment.

India’s new economic policy poses new challenges to the farm sector owing to the growing population, dwindling natural resources, and depletion of underground water resources.

The national agro policy was framed to meet the major challenges of Indian agriculture and to restructure the farm front to benefit the farming community.

The policy was aimed at achieving growth based on efficient use of resources, and meeting the challenges of economic liberalisation.

A major highlight of the policy was promotion of the private sector’s participation through contract farming.
The policy envisaged an effective pricing strategy to ensure remunerative and profitable prices to the farmers for their produce and a better distribution system for the needy. There was a flexibility in the fixation of support prices on regional basis depending on transport cost.

There was also a provision to protect farmers from adverse impact of undue price fluctuations in the world market. Land ceiling laws were to be enforced, and women headed families were to be preferred in the matter of distribution of land.

In rural India, agriculture is the most important means of livelihood for over 65 per cent of the population. Therefore there should be a proper development of agro-based industries like fruits and vegetable processing facilities, and there should be emphasis on the development of livestock. The scenario on the food front in 2006-07 has not been encouraging. Its output has not exceeded 209 million tonnes. The present food production would not suffice to feed our growing population of over 1100 million.

It is unfortunate that the right to food has not been given over-riding priority as there is hardly any concern towards the sufferings of the poor farmer.

The public distribution system has to be revamped; the “Antyodaya Anna Yojana” programme has to be expanded to cover rural households and to create employment opportunities to generate income of the poor farmers to enable them to procure food. There is an urgent need to over-haul socio-economic and farm policies to remove rural-disparities for improving rural infrastructure. It is the responsibility of the state governments to implement poverty-alleviation programmes to ensure food availability to the poor farmers to prevent tragic deaths among them.