Assessment of socio-environmental factors associated with Farmer’s Suicide The case study of Baloda Bazar, Chhattisgarh

Abstract

A popular peasant saying that “abundance of water destroys life; paucity of water destroys life” signifies agriculture’s link with monsoon. The vagaries of nature have been associated with ups and downs in cultivation. Furthermore, disease and pests can also affect crops. When the produce is good, an excess in the market can through low prices lead to poor returns from cultivation. Expanding prices can also adversely affect returns. Spurious inputs could also leave the farmer in a quandary. The increasing dependence on inputs from the market has also brought about greater demand for credit, which adds another important dimension to the difficulties. There are various risks in agriculture – income, yield, price, input, technology innovation and credit among others. In recent years, the issue of suicides in rural India has become a subject of great concern and is much debated both at the central as well as State Government level. Farmer’s Suicide being multifaceted and complex phenomenon, In eighteenth and nineteenth century researches on farmers suicide pattern of rural areas were mainly focused on subject of sociology, economics and psychology, but in early twentieth century researches on Farmer’s suicide has focused their concern on climatic factors and sociodemographic factors such as variation in rainfall, drought, flood and other natural disasters rather than only focusing on sociological, political and psychological aspects with many researches explaining why farmers suicide rates varies in different agro climatic conditions. Why some social, economic and environmental characteristics are correlated with variation in farmer’s suicide rate. The association between socioenvironmental factors, including meteorological and sociodemographic factors, have been shown in many studies. However, up to now, very few studies have examined the association between meteorological factors and farmers suicide and explored the interaction of climate and socio-demographic factors at the national wide of India; or used a spatial approach to examine the magnitude of contribution of both climate and sociodemographic factors on suicide across small areas in the country. The governmental estimate puts that 241,679 farmers in India committed suicide between 1995 and2009, while the actual figure is likely to be more. As per the data from 2001 to 2014 of National Crime Records Bureau of India (NCRB), the tendency of farmers resorting to the extreme step of suicide is alarming in Maharashtra, Telangana, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Karnataka, they account for nearly 80 per cent of the farmers suicides in the country. The unfortunate incidences of farmer suicides continued in the subsequent years. Number of farmers who committed suicide in 2015 went up by 42 per cent as compared to 2014. The five states remained as suicides hotspots in both the years. Despite reporting the highest rate of farmer suicide in India for years, there are no clear suicide documenting farming distress in Chhattisgarh. This thesis research attempts to determine the relationship between suicide pattern and responsible factor by selecting a representative sample of various responsible factors like physical, socio-economic and environmental variables in association with farmer’s suicide data of Bhatapara tehsil in Baloda Bazar district. The research aim has been accomplished by fulfilling the objectives of identifying factors responsible for farmer’s suicide, followed by analyzing and mapping of micro level issues by using various stakeholders’ perception and subsequently establishing the linkage between farmer’s suicide and socio-environmental factors. The study however focuses on small area of high prone suicide district and village level survey have been carried out to understand the micro level issues and causative factors of farmer’s suicide. The study area selected for this research happens to be a one of the high farmer’s suicide prone district of Chhattisgarh. Farmer’s suicide rate of 2015 in block Bhatapara of Baloda bazar district of Chhattisgarh is 12.9 per ten thousand farming families which is higher than average farmers suicide rate(2015) of Chhattisgarh (5.7/ten thousand farming families). The methodology followed for this research can be divided into four major steps i.e., identifying the study area by some location criteria selection such as exploring the temporal, spatial and spatiotemporal patterns of farmer’s suicide in the state across sex, age groups, urban rural difference and by suicide methods over years, followed by mapping of micro level issues with the perception of stakeholders and establishing the type of correlation which exist between in different environmental and the socio-economic condition of the area. The Major finding of this research are data provided by NCRB 2012,2013,2013 of Chhattisgarh considers only main cultivators in agriculture related suicides whereas marginal cultivators and agriculture labors suicide have been considered in others iii category and that is why increase in number of suicides in other categories were much higher than previous years. Further while exploring the linkage between environment factor and farmers suicide no direct relationship could be found but inverse relationship between rainfall and number of farmer’s suicide can be seen through primary survey. Other socio- economic factors Non-availability of canals, low MSP prices for paddy, access to market and lack of physical infrastructure, low yield play higher role in the case of farmer’s suicide in the study area. Overall, the findings provide useful information on socio-environmental impact on suicide and public health implementation in suicide control and prevention, especially during extreme weather and socially disadvantaged places.