Thread by @vjgtweets

Interesting piece on the geography of farmer suicides in India. Looks like Punjab and Mizoram are the two states where farmer suicides in 2018 surpassed the overall suicide rate. What's driving this?

livemint.com/news/india/the…

"In the analysis of farmer suicides between 1997 and 2012, the researchers argue that farmer suicides are a result of three broad factors, including existing vulnerability in a region, agrarian crisis, and lack of alternative opportunities."

Looks like farmer suicides in Punjab are concentrated in the Malwa region, where land is primarily is leased by "small and marginal farmers" (i.e. holdings of 1-5 acres)

indianexpress.com/article/explai…

"Of the farmers who committed suicide, 43.84 per cent were marginal farmers (having upto 1 hectare land), 30.12 per cent were small farmers (having upto 2 hectares), 18 per cent were semi-medium farmers (having land upto 2.5 hecatres)"

The primary cause of farmer suicides is-- predictably-- farm debt, caused in party by high land leasing costs:

"In Malwa, the number of ‘landless’ and ‘marginal farmers’ is very high against the availability of farmland..

Cultivation of land is the only way available to them to earn their living. For taking land on rent, they are dependent on big land lords and ‘sahukaars’ (private money lenders), who have also become owners of agricultural lands of most small and marginal farmers,

who could not pay their debts and finally transfer their lands to these lenders,” said BKU Ugrahan General Secretary Sukhdev Singh Kokrikalan."

"In the Malwa region, a large number of farmers have to spend a chunk of their earnings on health issues including cancer, which is quite common here.... Several reasons have been attributed to high number of cancer patients here, including highly contaminated groundwater."

This piece by Gaurav Bansal on the inequalities of Punjab's agricultural economy is also an eye-opener.

frontline.thehindu.com/the-nation/pun…

"In 2002-03, Punjab had the highest inequality in rural land ownership; the gini-coefficient was 0.82, compared to the Indian average of 0.75. (The gini coefficient is a measure of inequality varying between 0, implying perfect equality, and 1, which implies highest inequality).

This inequality in the ownership of land has been widening only in the last few decades. The inequality is starker in the case of operational holdings because rich farmers in Punjab have almost entirely captured the land lease in market by leasing in land from all sources,

including from small and marginal landowners, termed as 'reverse tenancy'"

"Thus, while the Green Revolution enhanced incomes of the landed Jat Sikhs—along with the merchants commission agents who predominantly come from Bania and Khatri castes— Dalits and the rural poor have largely been excluded from the prosperity. Dalits,

who earlier used to lease in small parcels of land, experienced widespread evictions in the 1970s and 1980s, which still continues. High land prices and rental rate for leasing in land continue to act as formidable barriers for Dalits in accessing land."