ABSTRACT
The second chapter addresses the gravity and the various dimensions of the farmers’ suicides problem by discussing farmer suicide statistics. It analyses the trends in farmer suicides during 1995–2015 in two periods: during the first thirteen years, from 1995 to 2007, and during the next seven years, from 2008 to 2015. The objective is to understand the incidence of suicides as it began and peaked to attract national attention and the policy response in terms of National Policy for Farmers 2007 with a goal of 4% growth and then to launch ten national mission schemes to address every problem that the Swaminathan Committee brought up. The comparison with the later period was carried out with the objective of finding out whether there was any real decline in farmer suicides during the second period, as the government seemed to believe, and assessing whether the new set of policies has done any good. It establishes the fact that although there is a decline in the annual national average of the farmer suicide rate, there are states which have incurred more deaths in the second period, and the decline in many cases may be due to states as West Bengal massaging the data. Finally, this chapter projects the total likely number of farmers’ suicides until 2020. The most important fact it reveals is that the problem is more due to the weather conditions in the plateau regions of India.
