Kerala Farmer

[Hebe Newnam]

Formedin 2006, FTAK is a farmer-led movement whose members are located in four hilly districts of the Western Ghats of Kerala. Cashew growers are mainly in Kasargod and Kannur regions and spice growers mainly in Kozhikode and Wayanad.

FTAK was created to enable farmers to access the global market and improve their income through Fairtrade. Farmers in Kerala face many challenges including food security, the appropriation of rural land, the effects of pests and disease on their livelihoods, destruction of crops by wildlife, and the unwillingness of the younger generation to continue with agriculture. But the major challenges are the falling prices of commodities and the growing indebtedness of farmers which has led to a spate of farmer suicides.

FTAK actively promotes organic farming for its economic and environmental benefits, with all members now in conversion to certified organic production. FTAK also acts on behalf of its members to access government-aided programmes such as crop insurance, provision of organic inputs and farmer training.

FTAK and 11 producer co-operatives in Malawi, Nicaragua and Bolivia jointly own a 44% share in UK-based Fairtrade nut company Liberation Foods. Ownership of the company means they have an active role in its governance and more power within their supply chain.

A large part of the Fairtrade Premium is invested in converting farms to organic production so that farmers can benefit from higher prices and access premium markets. It is also used to help farmers meet organic certification costs.

The premium has been invested in solar powered electric fencing to protect farms on the edge of forests from the local elephants. The fences provide a mild shock to deter the animals and prevent the destruction of their crops.

FTAK has invested the premium in a disaster management fund. This is very important, especially for the farmers on the hillsides. At monsoon time there are landslides which can wreak havoc. Government aid is often delayed and inadequate and the farmers need immediate assistance, especially when they are left homeless and their crops destroyed.

Farmers' suicides in India refers to the event of farmers dying by suicide in India since the 1970s, due to their inability to repay loans mostly taken from private landlords and banks. India being an agrarian country with around 70% of its rural population depending directly or indirectly upon agriculture,[1] the sector had a 15% share in the economy of India in 2023,[2] and according to NSSO, around 45.5% of country's labor force was associated with agriculture in 2022.[3] Activists and scholars have offered several conflicting reasons for farmer suicides, such as anti-farmer laws, high debt burdens, poor government policies, corruption in subsidies, crop failure, mental health, personal issues and family problems.

The National Crime Records Bureau data shows that while 296,438 farmers had died by suicide between 1995 and 2014,[4] in the nine years between 2014 and 2022, the number stood at 100,474.[5] In 2022, a total of 11,290 persons involved in the farming sector (5,207 farmers and 6,083 agricultural labourers) have committed suicide in India, accounting for 6.6% of total suicide victims in the country.[6]

Earlier, governments had reported varying figures, from 5,650 farmer suicides in 2014[7] to the highest number of farmer suicides in 2004 of 18,241.[8] The farmer's suicide rate in India had ranged between 1.4 and 1.8 per 1,00,000 population, over a 10-year period through 2005. However, the figures in 2017 and 2018 showed an average of more than 10 suicides daily or 5760 suicides per year.[9] There are accusations of states manipulating the data on farmer suicides, hence the real figures could be even higher.[10]

The colonial government enacted the Deccan Agriculturists' Relief Act in 1879, to limit the interest rate charged by money lenders to Deccan cotton farmers, but applied it selectively to areas that served foreign cotton trading interests.[16][18] Rural mortality rates, in predominantly agrarian areas of colonial India, were very high between 1850 and the 1940s.[19][20] However, starvation related deaths far exceeded those by suicide, the latter being officially classified under "injuries".[21] The death rate classified under "injuries", in 1897, was 79 per 100,000 people in Central Provinces of India and 37 per 100,000 people in Bombay Presidency.[22]

Ganapathi and Venkoba Rao analyzed suicides in parts of Tamil Nadu in 1966. They recommended that the distribution of agricultural organophosphorus compounds be restricted.[23] Similarly, Nandi et al. in 1979 noted the role of freely available agricultural insecticides in suicides in rural West Bengal and suggested that their availability be regulated.[24] Hegde studied rural suicides in villages of northern Karnataka over 1962 to 1970 and stated the suicide incidence rate to be 5.7 per 100,000 population.[25] Reddy, in 1993, reviewed high rates of farmer suicides in Andhra Pradesh and its relationship to farming size and productivity.[26]

Reporting in the popular press about farmers' suicides in India began in the mid-1990s, particularly by Palagummi Sainath.[27][28] In the 2000s, the issue gained international attention and a variety of Indian government initiatives.[29][30]

The National Crime Records Bureau, an office of the Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India, which has been collecting and publishing suicide statistics for India since the 1950s (as annual Accidental Deaths & Suicides in India report) has started separately collecting and publishing farmer's suicide statistics from 1995.[31]

Various reasons have been offered to explain why farmers die by suicide in India, including floods, drought, debt, use of genetically modified seeds, public health, and use of lower quantity pesticides due to fewer investments producing a decreased yield. There is no consensus[35][36][37] on what the main causes might be but studies show suicide victims are motivated by more than one cause, on average three or more causes for dying by suicide, the primary reason being the inability to repay loans.[38] Panagariya, an economist at the World bank states, "farm-related reasons get cited only approximately 25 percent of the time as reasons for suicide" and "studies do consistently show greater debt burden and greater reliance on informal sources of credit" among farmers who die by suicide.[38]

A study conducted in 2014, found that there are three specific characteristics associated with high-risk farmers: "those that grow cash crops such as coffee and cotton; those with 'marginal' farms of less than one hectare; and those with debts of 300 Rupees or more." The study also found that the Indian states in which these three characteristics are most common had the highest suicide rates and also accounted for "almost 75% of the variability in state-level suicides."[39][40]

Studies dated 2004 through 2006, identified several causes for farmers suicide, such as insufficient or risky credit systems, the difficulty of farming semi-arid regions, poor agricultural income, absence of alternative income opportunities, a downturn in the urban economy which forced non-farmers into farming, and the absence of suitable counseling services.[35][43][44] In 2004, in response to a request from the All India Biodynamic and Organic Farming Association, the Mumbai High Court required the Tata Institute to produce a report on farmer suicides in Maharashtra, and the institute submitted its report in March 2005.[45][46] The survey cited "government's lack of interest, the absence of a safety net for farmers and lack of access to information related to agriculture, as the chief causes for the desperate condition of farmers in the state."[45]

An Indian study conducted in 2002, indicated an association between victims engaging in entrepreneurial activities (such as venturing into new crops, cash crops, and following market trends) and their failure in meeting expected goals due to a range of constraints.[47][48]

Economists like Utsa Patnaik, Jayati Ghosh, and Prabhat Patnaik suggest that structural changes in the macro-economic policy of the Indian Government that favored privatization, liberalization, and globalization are the root cause of farmer suicides.[49][50] Business economists dispute this view.[51][52]

A number of social activist groups and studies proposed a link between expensive genetically modified crops and farmer suicides.[43] Bt cotton (Bacillus thuringiensis cotton) was claimed to be responsible for farmer suicides.[53] The Bt cotton seeds cost nearly twice as much as ordinary ones. The higher costs forced many farmers into taking ever larger loans, often from private moneylenders charging exorbitant interest rates (60% a year). The moneylenders force farmers to sell their cotton to them at a price lower than it fetches on the market. According to activists and studies, this created a source of debt and economic stress, ultimately suicides, among farmers. Increasing costs in farming associated with decreasing yields even with use of BT cotton seeds are often quoted cause of distress among farmers in central India.[54] A 2015 study in Environmental Sciences Europe found that farmer suicide rates in India's rainfed areas were "directly related to increases in Bt cotton adoption." Factors leading to suicide included "high costs of BT cotton" and "ecological disruption and crop loss after the introduction of Bt cotton."[55] Other scholars, however, say that this Bt cotton theory made certain assumptions and ignored field reality.[56]

In 2008, a report published by the International Food Policy Research Institute, an agriculture policy think tank formed to promote the adoption of innovations in agricultural technology, based in Washington, D.C., noted that there was an absence of data relating to "numbers on the actual share of farmers committing suicide who cultivated cotton, let alone Bt cotton."[43][57] In order to evaluate the "possible (and hypothetical)"[57] existence of a connection the study employed a "second-best" assessment of evidence relating to farmer suicides firstly, and to the effects of Bt cotton secondly.[57] The analysis revealed that there was no "clear general relationship between Bt cotton and farmer suicides"[58] but also stated that it could not reject the "potential role of Bt cotton varieties in the observed discrete increase in farmer suicides in certain states and years, especially during the peak of 2004 in Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra."[59] The report also noted that farmer suicides predate the official commercial introduction of Bt cotton by Monsanto Mahyco in 2002 (and its unofficial introduction by Navbharat Seeds in 2001) and that such suicides were a fairly constant portion of the overall national suicide rate since 1997.[43][60] The report noted that while Bt cotton may have been a factor in specific suicides, the contribution was likely marginal compared to socio-economic factors.[43][60] Elsewhere,[9] Gruere et al. discuss the introduction and increase in use of Bt cotton in the state of Madhya Pradesh since 2002, and the observed drop in total suicides among that state's farmers in 2006. They then question whether the impact of the increase in use of Bt cotton on farmers suicide in Madhya Pradesh has been to improve or worsen the situation.[9]

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