Every hour, another life lost: India's unfinished agrarian crisis

By Vikas Meshram* 

The National Crime Records Bureau's (NCRB) latest report, Accidental Deaths and Suicides in India 2024, released in May, delivers a stark reminder that India's agrarian crisis remains far from over. According to the report, 10,546 people associated with agriculture died by suicide during the year. While this is marginally lower than the 10,786 recorded in 2023, the decline offers little reason for optimism. Nearly twenty-eight farmers and farm labourers continue to die by suicide every day—roughly one every hour. Such a tragedy cannot be dismissed as a statistical fluctuation; it reflects deep structural distress that continues to haunt rural India.

The most troubling aspect of the latest data is the growing vulnerability of farm labourers. Of the 10,546 agricultural suicides, 5,913—about 56 per cent—were landless agricultural labourers, the second-highest proportion recorded in the past five years. In 2020, they accounted for less than half of all agricultural suicides. Their steadily increasing share points to a profound transformation in India's rural economy.

This trend is closely linked to changing patterns of rural income. NABARD's All India Rural Financial Inclusion Survey shows that the share of income from farming declined from 49 per cent in 2012-13 to 37.7 per cent in 2018-19, while dependence on wage labour increased from 32 per cent to 40 per cent during the same period. As farming becomes less remunerative, many rural households are forced to depend increasingly on agricultural wage labour. Yet landless labourers remain outside most institutional safety nets. They receive no crop insurance, derive little benefit from farm loan waivers, and often have no work when crops fail due to drought or floods. Their growing distress is one of the clearest indicators of the changing face of India's agrarian crisis.

The state-wise figures reinforce this concern. Maharashtra once again accounted for the highest number of agricultural suicides, recording 3,824 deaths—more than one-third of the national total. Although the NCRB does not identify the causes of individual suicides, the state's repeated exposure to climate-related disasters cannot be ignored. In 2024, extreme weather damaged more than 2 million hectares of crops in Maharashtra, almost half the total crop area affected across the country.

Karnataka followed with 2,971 suicides, registering the sharpest increase among major states. Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan also reported significant increases, while Andhra Pradesh recorded a decline compared with the previous year. Tamil Nadu and Chhattisgarh continued to report substantial numbers as well. Particularly alarming is the situation in Puducherry, where agricultural suicides rose from none between 2019 and 2022 to thirty-three in 2024, with every victim being a farm labourer.

The crisis is also spreading geographically. Uttar Pradesh, traditionally not among the states reporting the highest numbers of farm suicides, has witnessed a noticeable increase, particularly among agricultural labourers. Across the country, fourteen states recorded an increase in agricultural suicides during the past five years, while in thirteen states suicides among farm labourers now exceed those among landowning cultivators. This shift indicates that agrarian distress is increasingly concentrated among those who possess neither land nor financial security.

India's farm suicide crisis is not a recent phenomenon. According to an analysis by the Centre for Science and Environment, nearly 394,000 farmers and farm labourers died by suicide between 1995 and 2023. The analysis argues that the period following India's entry into the World Trade Organization saw increasing exposure of small farmers to volatile markets, rising cultivation costs and weakening public support. The rapid expansion of expensive input-intensive farming, particularly Bt cotton cultivation in rain-fed regions, increased financial risks without guaranteeing stable returns. Between 2000 and 2009 alone, more than 154,000 agricultural suicides were recorded.

Government interventions such as the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) helped moderate the crisis in several states after 2010 by providing supplementary employment and income. Kerala, West Bengal and Madhya Pradesh recorded notable declines during this period. However, in states such as Maharashtra and Karnataka, where rain-fed agriculture and commercial cash crops dominate, the structural vulnerabilities remained largely unaddressed. The recent rise in suicides among farm labourers suggests that earlier gains may now be eroding.

Climate change has added another layer of uncertainty. Multiple studies have established a strong association between rainfall deficits and farmer suicides. Drought-prone states such as Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh consistently report high levels of agrarian distress, underscoring the growing influence of climate variability on rural livelihoods.

Official statistics themselves may underestimate the true scale of the problem. Differences between district records and NCRB data have often been documented. In Maharashtra's Yavatmal district, for instance, district records reported more than twice as many farmer suicides as police records over the same period. Women farmers remain particularly invisible because many are officially classified as "housewives" rather than cultivators, despite contributing substantially to agricultural work. Consequently, their deaths frequently disappear from agricultural suicide statistics.

The tragedy extends far beyond the individual death. Families left behind often sell land, livestock and other assets to repay debts. Widows struggle to access compensation, pensions and legal rights over agricultural land. Many are pushed into insecure informal work, while children frequently discontinue education or migrate in search of livelihoods. Seasonal migration among landless agricultural workers has become an increasingly common coping strategy in many rural regions.

The persistence of this crisis calls for a broader policy response than has existed so far. Farm labourers need to be recognised as a distinct and highly vulnerable group deserving dedicated social protection. Expanding MGNREGS, increasing guaranteed workdays, ensuring timely wage payments, strengthening social security, simplifying crop insurance, improving the implementation of minimum support prices, and promoting climate-resilient agriculture are all essential measures. Equally important is improving the accuracy of official data so that policy reflects the true scale of rural distress.

Ultimately, agricultural suicides are not merely numbers in an annual report. Every death represents a family pushed into uncertainty, a community weakened, and hopes extinguished. India cannot claim to have addressed its agrarian crisis while nearly one person connected to farming continues to die by suicide every hour. The NCRB's latest figures should therefore serve not as another annual statistical release, but as a call for sustained structural reforms that restore economic security and dignity to those who feed the nation.

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*Contact: vikasmeshram04@gmail.com