Bountiful rains, bumper crop bring down farmer suicides

Shilpa P. | NT

Mysuru: Plenty of rain, a good harvest and government measures have paid off for the state’s agrarian economy, with a drastic decline in the farmer suicide rate across Karnataka. The pandemic, which put paid to lavish weddings for daughters, grand festival celebrations and travels to visit temples, has contributed instead to bolstering farmers’ savings. Together, these factors have led to a drastic decline – the state has seen 299 farmers’ suicides in 2021-22, as opposed to 774 last year and 1,081 deaths in 2019-20. While there has been a decline since 2018, the numbers dropped significantly this year.

Three lakh hectares of crops were lost due to heavy rain between July and September, during Kharif season. Farmers sowed over 78.5 lakh hectares of land as opposed to the target 77 lakh hectares. When Rabi season began on October 1, farmers sowed 24.18 lakh hectares of land instead of the target 28 lakh hectares. They suffered a crop loss of some 12.5 lakh hectares due to unseasonal October and November rains, including some standing Kharif crops.

The state suffered an eight percent deficit during the South West Monsoon (June 1 to September 30), while the North East Monsoon (October 1 to present) brought with it a whopping 88 percent excess. “The major reservoirs have 88 percent storage at the end of December, which is a first in 30 years,” says Dr G.S. Srinivas Reddy, former director of the Karnataka State Natural Disaster Monitoring Centre (KSNDMC). “For the first time in a decade, ground water has increased by 82 percent in the state’s taluks. Farmers have not needed to utilise ground water in the last two months, since rainfall has been ample,” Dr Reddy explains.

As for the decrease in the number of farmer suicides, joint director of Agriculture for Mysuru district, Mahantheshappa, says “good rains, crops and government measures have helped in the decline of suicide cases, despite the crop loss.” A large part of farmers’ loans, he explains, are taken “by farmers for their daughters’ lavish weddings, festivals, family functions and to visit temples. Due to Covid restrictions, weddings became simple, people avoided get-togethers and stopped travelling to temples. It helped farmers save money.” That’s not all, some five percent of the youth who lost their jobs during the pandemic, returned to their villages and became involved with farming work, Mahantheshappa adds.

Farmers’ leader, head of the State Sugarcane Growers’ Association and former head of the State Federation of Farmers’ Associations, Kurbur Shanthakumar, agrees with these reasons. He believes, however, that there is still more the government can do and, returning to a refrain that has come many times from the farming community over the last year, demanded a minimum support price guarantee. “Phasal Bhima Yojana insurance scheme must be extended to all crops. The agriculture loan system also needs to change because we get just Rs 50,000 for 20 acres of land. They have to introduce a special insurance scheme for farmers, like Yashaswini. For instance, let them deduct Rs 50 paise for one ton of sugarcane. If they do so, they will benefit 25 lakh sugar cane growers alone,” he said. “The state must also act on its plan to form a directorate for secondary farming, so farmers can have other sources of income as well. The Vidhya Nidhi scheme for the higher education of farmers’ children must be extended to younger ones as well.”

Shanthakumar was recently paid a visit by IMF Chief Gita Gopinath, who came to his parents’ house in Mysuru recently. He met her and suggested that the organisation come up with programmes to help farmers in the post-Covid scenario.