Agrarian Distress in Indian Agriculture: Causes, Socio-economic Consequences and Coping Strategies

Agrarian distress is the economic, political and social challenges faced by the farmers and rural communities due to factors such as low crop yields, fluctuating prices of agricultural produce, high input costs, indebtedness, and lack of access to credit, markets, and infrastructure. Over 8,00,000 individuals are dies by suicide each year because of various reasons. More over the suicides are happening in the families whose own land is less than 1-2 hectares, who are in debt, have been identified the most at risk for suicide. The present article aims at better understanding of the causes, consequences and possible coping strategies for the agrarian distress in India. Causes such as fluctuations in crop sales, weather and climate conditions, dependent on natural resources, etc. are discussed in detail. Consequences of agrarian stress are suicides of farmers, rural migration, food insecurity, environmental impacts and so on. Solutions such as strengthening the forward markets, comprehensive crop insurance schemes for the framers where the non-MSP (Minimum Support Price) crops also may be covered, assured price to the farmers are discussed. Many researchers argued that farmers suicides are increasing but the research is limited in the specialised area of interest. In addition to that, researchers are focussing only on the socio-economic variables rather than the psychological variables. In order to mitigate the risks out of agrarian distress, farmers should be encouraged by the government and extension service providers to take up the subsidiary occupations and secondary agricultural occupations which helps them in getting profits in the situations where the crop damages due to the extreme weather patterns. As rightly pointed out by National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD), distress of the framers should have a long-term potential solution such as major reforms in the existing agricultural laws rather than farm loan waivers which acts as the short-term relief to the farmers.