Debt, drought, policy failure: Farmer suicides in India cross 394,000

By Vikas Meshram* 

India has long called itself an agricultural nation. School textbooks remind us that “the farmer is the backbone of the nation.” Yet what this backbone has endured over the past three decades is a story of relentless despair. Between 1995 and 2023, at least 394,206 farmers and agricultural labourers ended their lives—an average of 13,600 deaths every year. In 2022, one farmer or farm worker was dying by suicide every hour.

These are not mere statistics. Each number represents a broken family, orphaned children, widowed women. To call this tragedy “unfortunate” is misleading, for misfortune implies accident. What is unfolding is the direct consequence of policy failure, systemic neglect, and political indifference. Even after 75 years of independence, the farmer who feeds the nation is driven to consume poison—a permanent stain on Indian democracy.

Maharashtra has borne the heaviest burden. More than 60,000 farmers took their lives between 1995 and 2013. NCRB data shows Maharashtra recorded 4,248 farmer suicides in 2022, the highest in the country, followed by Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, and Madhya Pradesh. Together, these five states account for nearly 80 percent of farmer suicides. In 2023, Maharashtra alone accounted for 38 percent of agriculture-related deaths nationwide. Vidarbha and Marathwada, plagued by water scarcity and crop failures, have become epicentres of this crisis. In Marathwada, suicides rose 32 percent in the first quarter of 2025, with one farmer dying every two days in early 2026.

Indebtedness is the most prominent driver. A study found debt responsible in 87 percent of cases. More than half of India’s farming families were trapped in debt cycles as of 2018. Denied loans by national banks, farmers turn to private moneylenders, where compounding interest and crop failures push families into destitution. Nature’s uncertainty compounds the crisis: 79 percent of farmland depends on the monsoon, and two-thirds of India’s land was drought-prone between 2020 and 2022. Rising input costs, unfair pricing, and the flawed MSP formula further deepen losses. Less than 15 percent of crops are procured at MSP, leaving farmers at the mercy of middlemen.

Globalisation has worsened the plight. Since India joined the WTO in 1995, subsidies were cut and imports rose, undermining small farmers. Government schemes—debt waivers, crop insurance, special packages—have failed to stem the tide. Despite repeated announcements, suicides continue to climb. The Swaminathan Commission’s recommendations—MSP at C2+50 percent, expanded irrigation, rural social security—remain unimplemented.

Even compensation mechanisms expose cruel contradictions. Of 1,138 suicides recorded in Maharashtra between January and August 2025, only 607 families received assistance. The state’s aid of ₹1 lakh—₹30,000 in cash and ₹70,000 in fixed deposit—is woefully inadequate, and accessing it requires humiliating bureaucratic hurdles. Widows, left to manage farms, debts, and children, often inherit liabilities that prevent remarriage. Many remain unaware of compensation schemes, and women’s suicides are undercounted because land is registered in men’s names.

There are lessons in hope. Kerala reduced farmer suicides dramatically between 2005 and 2014 through crop diversification, irrigation expansion, insurance coverage, animal husbandry, and mental health services. Employment guarantee schemes like MGNREGA also temporarily lowered suicide rates. Honest implementation of Swaminathan’s recommendations, genuine MSP guarantees, and irrigation expansion could change the picture.

The questions remain stark: When will MSP be assured? When will irrigation systems be built? When will farmers escape the debt trap? Until concrete answers emerge, farmer suicides will remain a permanent blot on India’s agricultural system—one that no amount of development rhetoric can conceal.

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*Independent writer