India is an Agrarian country with around 60% of its people directly or indirectly depend upon Agriculture.

Agriculture in India is often attributed as gambling with Monsoon because of its almost exclusive dependency on Monsoons. The failure of these monsoons leading to series of droughts, lack of better prices, exploitation by Middlemen have been leading to series of suicides committed by farmers across India

Farmers in India became the centre of considerable concern in the 1990s when the journalist P Sainath highlighted the large number of suicides among them. Official reports initially denied the farmer suicides but as more and more information came to light the government began to accept that farmers in India were under considerable stress

17,368: The number of farmers reported to

have committed suicide in the year 2009. between 1997 and 2009.

2,16,500: The recorded farmer suicides 2,50,000: Farmers reported to have

committed suicide in the past 13 years in India These figures were released by the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB).

Study Findings- Reasons for Agrarian Distress and Suicides Indebtedness 93 % Economic downfall 74 % Conflict in Family 55 % Crop failure 41% Dent in Social Status- 36% Daughters/Sisters marriage 34 % Addiction- 28% Health problems 21 % Most of the suicides were because of combination of more than one factor.

There were many causes that led to the alarming increase in the farmer suicides at various parts of India. Farmer suicides are a result of many economic and social causes. The suicide of the breadwinner, whether young or old, leaves the families desolate and disrupts the social order.

In the initial years when farmers distress came to attract public attention it was said that indebtedness through use of Bt Cotton were the main cause for farmers suicide BT Cotton is expensive and requires lots of water. The farmers of the cotton belt were told that BT Seeds would provider higher yields than indigenous seeds They began borrowing from banks and moneylenders in order to pay for these seeds. In the event of a delayed or poor monsoon, the crop fails. This pushes the farmer into debt.

India was transforming rapidly into a primarily urban, industrial society with industry as its main source of income; the government and society had begun to be unconcerned about the condition of the countryside; the farmer was also caught in a Scissors Crisis; in the absence of any responsible counselling either from the government or society there were many farmers who did not know how to survive in the changing economy. Such stresses pushed many into a corner where suicide became an option for them

Research has also pointed to a certain types of technological change as having played an instrumental role in the problem. A study from Punjab showed dramatic misuse of agricultural chemicals in farmer households in the absence of any guidance on how to correctly use these deadly chemicals and linked it to the rise in farm suicides wherever farm chemicals were in widespread use.

The problem is complex and root causes include lopsided policies of the World Trade Organisation and developed nations' subsidies to their cotton farmers which make Vidarbha's cotton uncompetitive in world markets.

Consequently Vidarbha is plagued by high rates of school drop outs, penniless widows left in the wake of suicides, loan sharks and exploitation of the vulnerable groups

The government has withdrawn market controls, tariffs and subsidies for agriculture under the diktats of the World Bank. This is done without providing proper infrastructure such as irrigation and marketing facilities. This has pushed Indian farmers to compete with farmers in the United States and the European Union who are protected by trade restrictions and provided with billions of dollars as subsidy. The 2002 Farm Bill in the U.S. alone gave $190 billion to large companies growing cotton, wheat, corn, soybean, rice, barley, oats and sorghum.

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