Farmer Suicides Research Articles

Farmers Suicides in Karnataka

Farmers Suicides in Karnataka

"I've given up": Biopsychosocial factors preceding farmer suicide in Wisconsin.

Recent studies have suggested that individuals working in certain occupations may be at increased risk for suicide. While occupation is an individual-level factor, one's work is situated in organizations, communities, and societies that are impacted by policies and systems. Analysis of existing data has identified that farmers are among those with elevated rates of suicide. This qualitative study reports themes that capture the experience of farmers prior to their death by suicide in Wisconsin. This retrospective qualitative study analyzed data from the Wisconsin Violent Death Reporting System. Data on farmer suicides that occurred in Wisconsin between 2004 and 2018 were accessed. Qualitative analyses followed an inductive thematic analysis approach. All study activities were approved by the institutional review board at the Medical College of Wisconsin. Between 2004 and 2018, 190 farmers died by suicide in Wisconsin. Five themes were identified in the qualitative analysis: "rugged individualism" clashes with a need to rely on others, interpersonal loss causes intense emotional pain and suffering, financial stress and strain overwhelm Wisconsin farmers, farmers are providers for families and communities, and alcohol and firearms are a lethal combination. Farmers who died by suicide in Wisconsin were facing significant stressors at the time of their death, many of which were not directly related to verifiable diagnosed mental illness. These circumstances varied, from physical health issues to financial stressors, to emotional pain from interpersonal conflict, and to access to lethal means. This study provides evidence calling for a public health solution to this issue, through changes at the policy, systems, and cultural levels. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Evaluating an Agricultural Community Suicide Prevention Program: Instrumentation and Impact

Highlights This paper details an evaluation of a piloted community-based farmer suicide prevention training program using a revised Willingness to Intervene Against Suicide Questionnaire. Indicating program utility and impact, willingness to intervene with a person in crisis increased by 0.21 logits (p<0.01) in program participants who completed pre- and post-training surveys. A comparison of growth in the willingness to intervene variable across participant demographics and characteristics revealed a change of 0.43 logits among males, compared to 0.096 for females (p=0.059). Researchers recommend that the program be tailored to consider gender differences. Abstract. In this study, researchers detail an evaluation of a pilot community-based farmer suicide prevention program that used QPR-based training customized for the agricultural community. Community-based mental health programs have been cited as key to addressing the worldwide suicide rate, but evidence of their execution and utility is not well documented, particularly within the agricultural community context. Researchers used Kirkpatrick's (1998) training evaluation model and a pre-post one-group design (Eseryel, 2002) of consenting training participants to conduct a preliminary assessment of programmatic impact. Using a revised Willingness to Intervene Against Suicide Questionnaire (Aldrich et al., 2014), which treated the questionnaire as an interval level scale suitable for parametric analysis, researchers found statistically significant differences in pre-training willingness to intervene between male and female respondents as well as those who work in agriculture and those who do not. An analysis of those respondents who completed both pre- and post-training surveys indicated statistically significant growth of 0.21 logits in the willingness to intervene variable, as well as remarkable growth for male participants in comparison to female participants. Keywords: . Evaluation of suicide prevention program, Farmer suicide prevention, Rasch analysis, Willingness to intervene.

Farm stress and the production of rural sacrifice zones

For years, farmer suicides have made the news as a slow-brewing farm crisis resonates across the rural U.S. with widely varying claims about the cause. Using a suite of qualitative and quantitative methods, we juxtapose data from a farmer-oriented crisis hotline in Nebraska, the Nebraska Rural Response hotline, alongside semi-structured interviews with people working in organizations that respond to the current epidemic of farm stress. Taking these sources of data together, we find that farmers, ranchers, and members of farming communities most frequently seek help for economic distress, and the most common psychiatric diagnosis assigned to hotline callers who seek therapeutic support is connected to both acute external events in rural life and high rates of suicide. We identify a “crisis belt” of high call volume in the Sandhills region of Nebraska and connect this geospatial finding to processes of economic restructuring in that region. Our findings support the claim that the current resources available to farmers in distress target individual farmers' responses to stress but do not address its causes, which can be understood in terms of economic restructuring and consequent adverse changes in the social fabric of rural communities. The mental health paradigm for farm-related distress constrains the possibilities for addressing it. We argue that analyzing this distress in terms of the production of rural sacrifice zones makes room for collective agency and systemic solutions to the root causes of farm-related distress.

DEVELOPMENT OF A WEBSITE FOR AGRICULTURAL MARKETING

India places a high importance on agriculture, but today's farmers are of a lower social class and deal with a lot of difficulties in their daily lives as a result of extreme poverty. Although the employers in this artwork represent 50% of our working population, agriculture only contributes to roughly 15% of India's GDP (properly domestic Product). One of the main factors contributing to farm suicide in India is the income era. Farm poverty is caused by a lack of understanding of the modern generation or new techniques. Even after all the laborious effort and output produced with the help of the farmers, the farmers are still pressured by the sellers in the modern marketplace, which causes poverty. To create direct income between farmers and consumers, it is essential to reduce middlemen's roles in marketing farm products. By using direct farmer-to-patron and language communication with farmers, this website enables farmers to ensure the most profitability. Farmers would be able to understand how entrepreneurs are deceiving them about the quality of their products with the help of this program. The farmer's need is made apparent by this utility. Farmers can learn all there is to know about eliminating inflation and black marketing by using this service. It enables accurate data and information remodeling. The device's clearly defined interfaces allowed one to easily explore the vast amount of information. Higher communication between the farmer and the consumer is made possible by this optimization website online

Assessing spatiotemporal variation in drought characteristics and their dependence on timescales over Vidarbha Region, India

In this study, a detailed spatiotemporal assessment of meteorological drought characteristics (viz., persistence, severity, and frequency) is carried out for the Vidarbha Region of Maharashtra, India, which has been infamous for the increasing number of farmer suicides there in the recent past. Using the long-term rainfall data from 11 districts for 62 years (1951–2012), the droughts in different severity classes are characterized by SPI. A detailed investigation of SPI-3, SPI-6, and SPI-12 is also done to assess the dependence of the drought characteristics at different timescales. The results reveal that the Vidarbha region is prone to meteorological droughts with frequency from once in 5 to 8 years. However, the frequency and severity of droughts have significantly increased in 1982–2012 compared to 1951–1981. The persistence of droughts is well captured by SPI at longer timescales. The trend analysis reveals the drought severities to be increasing over 10 out of 11 districts.

System analysis of water-energy-food nexus of Bundelkhand region, India

Abstract The challenges in drought-hit Bundelkhand are stemming from policy constraints and insecurity of water, energy, and food resources, which have triggered mass migration, unemployment, indebtedness, and farmer suicide. Among the surveyed households of Banda District, 21% have no electricity, 90% are using fuelwood and cow dung for cooking purposes, 70% are engaged in agriculture, per capita food consumption is very low, and 51% of the households are using less than 40 lpcd (liters per capita per day) of water. The research methodology is unique is tailored to the WEF nexus approach. It analyzes the primary data of 534 households, 33 experts (Delphi Technique), and the secondary data of 189 articles. The Causal Loop Diagrams capture the system's dynamic behavior and establishes interconnectedness of the identified control parameters using the systems approach. Major parameters for agricultural production are productivity, productive area, and cropping intensity, while major water demand comes from agriculture, industrial, and domestic use. The energy sector is identified as the most challenging in this region, and the total generation comes from solar, biogas, fossil fuels, and organic fuels. This study concludes with findings suggesting urgent actions to be taken for regional sustainability and policy recommendations at the local level.

Small Holders Farming Predictive Analysis Using Peer- To-Peer Approach

Farmers cultivating crops without permission from agriculture centres and farmers might choose some crops to Grow without complete knowledge of climatic and soil conditions, resulting in crop failures and further losses due to low rates set by middlemen for selling the yield, leading to an increase in farmer suicides and a data scalability problem (i.e., every time details are updated). To address the aforementioned issues, the major focus is on establishing a suggested system that would provide farmers with crop recommendations and yield predictions based on soil and meteorological parameters such as pH, N, P, and K levels; temperature; rainfall; and humidity. With these circumstances, farmers can determine which crops are the most suited as well as profitable and how much yield can be created. Farmers may also sell their agricultural harvest directly to purchasers without the need for a third party. We may make the farmer register to start the crop, obtain acknowledgement from village centres, and then, after farming, re-enter the crop specifics and amount of crop grade to accomplish data scalability. The transaction has now been accomplished, from receiving the crop at this address to sending the harvest to a certain warehouse. In this, we can use supervised machine learning approaches like classification and regression to help farmers decide the best crop to grow to avoid crop failures due to climate change, as well as to eliminate the need for a third party to sell to buyers, resulting in direct profits to farmers and lowering farmer suicide rates.

Suicide of Farmer and Farm Workers Amid COVID-19 in India: A Review

The purpose of the study is to examine the current scenario of farmers’ suicide in India. Farmer suicides in India refer to the national catastrophe of farmers committing suicide since the 1990s. The farmers’ suicide rate in India had ranged between 1.4 and 1.8 per 100,000 total population, over a 10-year period through 2005, however the corona virus disease (COVID-19) has impacted not only physical health but also mental health and wellbeing globally. These impacts can be critically higher among marginalized individuals and populations like farmers and agricultural laborers in India. While most of them live in poor socioeconomic conditions, recent psychosocial challenges due to the COVID-19 lockdown had brought endless suffering in their lives. In this way, presentstudy depicts about farmers and farm workers suicide amind COVID 19 India has been discussed.

Getis-Ord (Gi*) based Farmer Suicide Hotspot Detection

Farmer suicidal hotspot detection proposed in this paper aims to reduce the death of the farmers. Using geographical information system is vital in predicting potential hotspots for farmer suicide. This study has collected and analyzed data on farmer suicide in India, using state-wise information from the National Crime Records Bureau and has determined the recent higher rate of farmer suicide. Spatial statistics analysis tools that address average nearest neighbor analysis has been used. Global analysis through Moran's Index, analyzed that the farmer suicides have a clustered pattern and plotted a farmer suicidal hotspot map using Getis-Ord (Gi*) analysis. The results show the highest farmer suicide index is in Maharashtra and hence, farmer suicidal hotspot has been found district wise. There are four farmer suicidal factors such as, number of farmer suicide, the population density of farmers, climate, and income. This hotspot geographical region helps to identify future suicidal risk by studying the hotspot map. Moreover, government policy may suggest a hotspot zone to help the overall development of the country’s growth.

The Role of Social Work in Confronting the Farmer Suicide Crisis: Best Practice Recommendations and a Call to Action

ABSTRACT Although estimates of prevalence vary, suicide rates among farmers are high and pose an important challenge for mental health policy and practice. The lack of mental health resources in many rural communities is a significant barrier to improving farmer mental health outcomes. The current paper will review (1) current findings related to the psychosocial functioning of agriculturalists including rates of suicide and common mental health concerns within this population; (2) describe stressors and risk factors associated with mental health symptoms in rural and agricultural communities; and (3) discuss barriers associated with accessing mental health treatment. This article also includes recommendations for increasing the cultural competence of social work practitioners working with rural communities. Finally, existing research on using technology and workforce development approaches for increasing access to mental health in rural communities is presented and recommendations for future research are explored.

The Post-Truth Analysis of Farmers Suicides Explored in Shoes of The Dead by Kota Neelima


 
 
 
 The infamous farmer-suicides in India, owing to the incapability of debt-repayment house a major concern in the nation. The irony of it is, although more than 70 per cent of the Indian working population is engaged in agriculture, this sector remains gruesomely neglected by the media attention as they do not benefit any profit or merit from them. The news narrative is generally predetermined by the media editors, curated to address the popular ideology of the dominant rule. Post- Truth claims that news is “manufactured truth” highly influenced by the emotional appeal aspertheoristLeeMcIntyre. KotaNeelimaanalysestheissueoffarmer'ssuicide from the journalistic reportage angle. The article studies subverted theory of post- truth in the indigenous scenario of her novel Shoes of the Dead. These novels present the dual narratives of the agriculturists as well as the policy-makers to bring out an approach to the reality at the ground level and the media projected level. The article encompasses a study of Marxist' Reification' by examining the political influences on the media-inconspicuous author exposing the moral blindspots that determine the reasons behind the suicides, and their coverage on national media. The fictional narrative of Kota Neelima infuses her journalistic influences reflecting on the tussle between media ethics of journalism and corporate political demands of the media editors. The current farmer's protests regarding the repeal of the new Farm laws are an outcry of farmers disgusted by the failed promises of compensation of failed crops.
 
 
 

Characteristics of suicide among farmers and ranchers: Using the CDC NVDRS 2003–2018

BackgroundSuicide is among the top 10 causes of premature death in the United States. This study provides details on farmer and rancher suicide decedents, including demographic information, mental health status, history of suicidal thoughts and attempts, and circumstances associated with death.MethodsData for this study were obtained from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Violent Death Reporting System Restricted Access Database for the years 2003–2018. Descriptive statistics and adjusted odds ratios are presented for farm and nonfarm populations in addition to farm populations by age groups and sex.ResultsThis study found that almost half of the farmer suicide decedents were over 65 years old. Firearms were the most widely used method for farmers and ranchers regardless of age and sex. Young farmers and ranchers that died by suicide were more likely to have had relationship problems and older farmers and ranchers that died by suicides were more likely to have had a physical health problem. Male farmer and rancher suicide decedents were more likely to die by firearm than females, and female farmer and rancher suicide decedents were likely to have resided in a small metropolitan area, however, due to small numbers and suppression in the data, most sex comparisons were not able to be presented.ConclusionsWhile no clear risk factor for suicide among farmers and ranchers emerged, results underscore the complex nature of suicide and the need for multifaceted, culturally competent interventions and campaigns that address suicide risk and prevention at the individual and community levels.

Unraveling the Multiple Drivers of Greening-Browning and Leaf Area Variability in a Socioeconomically Sensitive Drought-Prone Region

The complex attribution of climatic, hydrologic, and anthropogenic drivers to vegetation and agricultural production and their consequential societal impacts are not well understood, especially in socioeconomically sensitive states like Maharashtra, India. Here, we analyzed trends and variability in the MODIS leaf area index (LAI) time series, along with spatiotemporal patterns in precipitation, groundwater storage, agriculture statistics, and irrigation infrastructure, to identify their influences on the vegetation response and discuss their implications for farmers. The state showed greening in all biomes except forests, with a net gain of 17.478 × 103 km2 of leaf area during 2003–2019, where more than 70% of the trend in LAI is represented in croplands. Maximum greening was observed in irrigated croplands, attributable to increased crop productivity, whereas inadequate irrigation facilities with erratic rainfall patterns and droughts were primarily responsible for cropland browning. We discerned the dynamics and variability of vegetation response by incorporating a spectrum of synergistic feedbacks from multiple confounding drivers and found that uneven distribution of water availability across the administrative divisions governed the quantitative distinction in leaf area change. Despite the observed greening trends, the state witnessed a high number of farmer suicides related to droughts and agriculture failures hampering their socioeconomic security; therefore, improved irrigation infrastructure and comprehensive policy interventions are crucial for abatement of farmer distress.

Smart Assistant for Enhancing Agronomics

Agriculture has been considered the backbone of India. But the growth of agriculture has declined in recent years which leads to a significant fall in the overall Gross Domestic Product (GDP). The Indian agricultural sector is on the brink of failure due to several factors like crop failures and farmer suicides. Even though there are a lot of help centers, welfare schemes, and modern technologies that the government provides, very few have adequate knowledge about that and fail to utilize them. Farmers are not ready to adapt to new methodologies and machineries. Thus, educating them in modern agriculture and equipping them with necessary modern machinery in a proper way is significantly crucial. This system makes the farmer aware of all the welfare schemes and subsidies provided by the government in case of any loss due to the natural disaster or any other relevant activities and helps the farmers to utilize them for the welfare of the crop. E services for crops and government schemes aim to provide information about the services or schemes available for the farmers. Farmers can also apply for the scheme for which they are eligible through the application. They buy and rent machinery from the government by availing the discounts they are eligible. Thus, the overall system acts as an apprentice for farmers and helps them to efficiently cultivate crops and maximize productivity.

A sociological study of patterns and determinants of farmer suicide in India

PurposeFarmer suicide as a social issue has existed in India since past three decades. Though many studies have been conducted from different perspectives to understand the causes and consequences of farmer suicide, very few studies have looked at the issue from a multidimensional perspective. By using the Durkheimian view of suicide, this paper aims to analyse the subjective meaning behind the social fact of suicide. It accesses the nature and pattern of suicide and examines the determinants of suicide from a socio-ecological paradigm.Design/methodology/approachThe present study mostly relies on National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) data on “accidental deaths and suicide in India” for the year 2018, 2019 and 2020 for the analysis of pattern and determinants of farmer suicide in India. The analysis of the data has been done in Excel, and descriptive statistics have been presented through simple contingency table.FindingsThe study found that in the past ten years, there has been a steady decline in the number of farmer suicide in India; however, some states such as Maharashtra and Karnataka continue to report high incidence of farmer suicide. Using a socio-ecological paradigm, the paper found that the farmer’s social system which is constituted of individual characteristics and societal characteristics has a direct impact on the tendency of a farmer to commit suicide. It was observed that the stronger the relationship between an individual and its microsystem, there is less chance of a person to commit suicide.Originality/valueThis is an original paper based on NCRB data for the year 2018, 2019 and 2020. The data for the farmer suicide has been calculated including the suicide of the agricultural labourers and the farmers/the cultivators.

Short-Term and Long-Term Replenishment of Water Storage Influenced by Lockdown and Policy Measures in Drought-Prone Regions of Central India

Central India faces a freshwater shortage due to its diverse terrain, sudden change in precipitation patterns and crystalline rock covered subsurface. Here, we investigate the patterns in terrestrial water storage anomaly (TWSA) over the last two decades, and also study the influence of the COVID-19 lockdown on TWSA in the drought-prone regions of central India, mostly covering the Vidarbha region of the Indian state of Maharashtra. The Vidarbha region is arguably the most drought-affected region in terms of farmer suicides due to crop failure. Our forecast data using multiple statistical approaches show a net TWSA rise in the order of 3.65 to 19.32 km3 in the study area in May 2020. A short-term rise in TWSA in April–May of 2020 is associated with lockdown influenced human activity reduction. A long-term rise in TWSA has been observed in the study region in recent years; the rising TWSA trend is not directly associated with precipitation patterns, rather it may be attributed to the implementation of water management policies.

Analyzing the Debt Behavior of Farm Households in the Maharashtra State of India

The number of farm suicides in India is alarming. While the official data on farm suicides released by National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) shows a rising trend till 2015, the figure went slightly down from 12,590 in 2015 to 10,338 in 2018. Any increase in the farm suicide cases in India is worrisome because of majority of population's dependence on agriculture. The report also mentions about the various reasons for farmers committing suicide with bankruptcy being a major cause of suicide among farmers. Considering the dismal state of farm suicides in the Maharashtra state of India, the present study attempts to analyze the debt behavior of the farm households for two time periods viz. 2004-05 and 2011-12. The study uses information on debt behavior of farm households in Maharashtra collected through two rounds of India Human Development Survey (IHDS) survey, which is a nationally representative, multi-topic survey across India. The first round of interviews was completed in 2004-05 and the second round of IHDS re-interviewed most of these households in 2011-12. The sample consists of a total of 1543 households in 2004-05 and 1685 households in 2011-12 in the Maharashtra state. The state of Maharashtra has been divided into 5 divisions viz. Konkan, Vidarbha, Nashik, Pune, and Marathwada. The sample households in the state have been divided based on land ownership and size of land into Agri wage laborer, small and marginal, medium, and large farm households. The debt profile of the households is analyzed using information on the share of indebted households, number of loans taken in the past 5 years, average loan size, outstanding debt, interest rate on the largest loan, debt-servicing capacity, debt-to-income ratio, consumption-income ratio, etc. The study also attempts to identify the key factors that are likely to have contributed to the highest number of farm suicides in Maharashtra and also provides policy suggestions for the government. The comparison between the two time periods not only helps understand what went wrong with the finances of farmers during the study period but also helps us identify the factors which may result in farmers taking such extreme steps in the future.

Examining Causal Variables Triggering Indian Farmer Suicide: Rising Rural Health Concern

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Cultivating distress: cotton, caste and farmer suicides in India

Nearly 4,00,000 farmers committed suicide in India between 1995 and 2018. This translates into approximately 48 suicides every day. The majority of suicides were those from ‘backwarded’ castes including Dalit farmers. This ethnographic study on cotton farmer suicide reports narratives of surviving Dalit families. The results reveal that financial and moral debt when accrued within a web of family and caste-related relationships result in patterns of personal and familial humiliation, producing a profound sense of hopelessness in the Self. This loss of hope and pervasive humiliation is ‘cultivated’ by a cascade of decisions taken by others with little or no responsibility to the farmers and the land they hope to cultivate as they follow different cultural and financial logic. Suicide resolves the farmers’ humiliation and is a logical conclusion to the farmer’s distress, which results from a reconfiguration of agricultural spaces into socially toxic places, in turn framing a local panopticon. The current corona virus pandemic is likely to impact adversely on peoples who are culturally distanced.