In a statistical record of sorts, Odisha is the only State in the country where, despite one of the worst-ever droughts in 2015, hardly any farmer took the extreme step of killing self for the cause of farm distress.
The neat fact is suicides in the farm sector have shrunk by half vis-a-vis 2014! Such a revelation has been made by the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) in its 2015 farmer suicides report.
Now, consider this. When the State Agriculture Department has officially pegged the total farmer suicides in 2015 at a whopping 139, the NCRB report relying on the State Home Department data (police records) has put the total farmer suicides at a mere 23 only, which, however, is a 360-per cent jump from only five in 2014! Man of eminence like Benjamin Disraeli, therefore, has aptly said, “There are three types of lies -- lies, damn lies and statistics”.
Moreover, as per the NCRB, at least two farmers in Odisha killed selves for the cause of indebtedness. The interesting pointer here is the NCRB report has been silent on indebtedness for what -- farming or non-farming.
Interestingly, a majority of 139 suicides recorded by State Agriculture Department has revealed that they have a loan burden and, that too, the loan was crop loan. For this, Ron Delegge II had said, “99 per cent of all statistics only tell 49 per cent of the story”.
The reason: Nationally, when 39 per cent of farmers committed suicides owing to indebtedness, only around 19 per cent farmers killed selves for failure of crop (which NCRB defines as farm-related). In contrast, of the total 23 farm suicides in Odisha, as per the NCRB, around a whopping 50 per cent farm suicides were due to other or unknown causes! And another major 26 per cent were due to family problems! The NCRB statistics, thus, show there is no farm distress in Odisha, and whatever suicides happened have nothing to do with farming or indebtedness.
Significantly, the NCRB 2015 report revealed that in Odisha more agricultural labourers (27) have committed suicide than cultivators (23). And here, toeing the national trend, Odisha too had family problems as the single major factor behind farm labour suicides.
However, the significant fact about farm suicides in Odisha is where 50 per cent such cases are for other or unknown causes, almost 60 per cent suicides are by marginal farmers and the incidences of suicides decline as the landholding size increases with not a single suicide case in farmer households with large landholdings.
The inference: Financial condition of a farmer is, therefore, the major triggering factor behind suicides; and farm distress is, therefore, evident in marginal farmer households.
Significantly, in Odisha a whopping 57 per cent of agricultural households are indebted, finds the NSSO survey, which the Odisha Government recently quoted to show it has doubled farmers’ income in a decade (2003-13).