Abstract
India is witnessing an increasing rate of farmers’ suicide, which has been attributed to indebtedness by most of the studies. Indebtedness can be attributed to multiple factors, including individual, household, community, climatic, institutional, and market-oriented factors. The majority of studies have related these factors with indebtedness in isolation, but the conflating effect of these factors has not been investigated. Moreover, it is observed that farmers follow different adaptation measures to deal with crop failure and socio-economic and climatic stressors, which also play a significant role in their well-being. However, the relationship of these adaptation measures toward indebtedness and farmers’ suicide was found to be missing in the existing literature, which would otherwise provide valuable information regarding how to deal with farmers’ suicide. Considering the compounding effect of these factors on farmers’ suicide, we evaluated and quantified the relationship of individual, community, climatic, credit, and market-oriented factors with adaptation and indebtedness, which were subsequently related to suicidal ideation of farmers. This complex relationship was estimated using structural equation modeling (SEM) by surveying 400 farmers across 15 villages in Vidarbha and Marathwada regions of Maharashtra. SEM results show that individual traits, i.e., age, experience, and illness of farmers; community-oriented factors, i.e., provision of lakes, wells, water tanks; credit factor, i.e., moneylenders; perception of climate change; and market factors are the primary factors contributing toward farmers’ suicidal ideation. Adaptation was found to play a vital role in reducing the indebtedness and suicidal thoughts of the farming community. Results emphasize that a combined and thorough understanding of all the factors is required before making any recommendations to the government or any other decision-making entity.
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