Over 3,500 farmers committed suicide in Odisha in 15 years

As many as 3,500 farmers have committed suicide in Odisha in the past 15 years, the state government accepted.

According to the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), Mr. Dilip Ray presented a report which clearly mentioned that 274 farmers committed suicide in between 2015-16.

It’s clearly mentioned on that report how many farmers committed suicide in between 2000 to 2014. Maximum cases of suicides happened in 2004 and 379 farmers killed themselves across the state. It decreased to 102 in 2014.

In last October The Governor and MPs were directed to investigate the causes of farmers’ suicides, Shri Pradeep Maharathy, Minister of Agriculture said.

In the report presented by the minister the clear cause of any farmer’s death was not mentioned. According to that data, not a single farmer commiteed suicide due to Crop failure and failure to repay the loan.

But reality is that maximum 90% of farmers’ death took place due to crop loss. It also mentioned from the cases of all farmers who committed suicide that, some farmers lost their crops but loan burden or loss in farming was not the cause behind farmer suicide in the state.

That report also mentioned, this year from 174 farmers’ death, the death of 93 farmers did not take place due to crop loss or loan. It’s also mentioned that the real cause of farmers suicide is social causes such as family conflict, health factor and drug addiction.

Mr. Maharathy said that the crop area is about 61.80 lakh hectare in Odisha out of which in rainy season 59.62 lakh hectares irrigated lands are used for farming whereas in winter season only 21.94 lakh hectare lands are used for farming.