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Farmers Suicides: Mind Map for UPSC Exam

Mind Map Important Topics:

Reasons

Historically India has been ruled by British for morethan two centuries, who never invested in Agricultural development and kept taxes very high.
Land reforms in India were not properly implemented and unregulated tenancy is still continuing throughout India.
The share of agriculture and allied activities in gross domestic product at constant 1999-2000 prices decreased from 41 per cent in 1972-73 to 14.6 per cent in 2009-10.
Indian agriculture is predominantly dependant on nature. Irrigation facilities that are currently available, do not cover the entire cultivable land.
Indian agriculture is largely an unorganized sector, there is no systematic planning in cultivation, farmers work on lands of uneconomical sizes, institutional finances are not available
India has witnessed a spate of droughts over the last decade. Intensity droughts has increased because of climate change.
Productivity of Indian farms is lowest among the similar nations, which leads to low income
In monsoon India, the farmer was exposed to either yield or price shocks
Lack of infrastructure for farm products to be sold at correct prize is also absent in country.
Corrruption at APMC's makes it impossible to get the correctprice for the farm produce.

Factual data

India is an agrarian country with around 70% of its people depending directly or indirectly upon agriculture.
National Crime Records Bureau collects and publishs suicide statistics for India as annual Accidental Deaths & Suicides in India reports.
Among all the suicides in India more than 11 percentof the suicide are suicide by the farmers.
Suicide rate among the Indian farmers is 1.4% perlakh of Indian population, which is among the highestin the world.
Agriculture including agricultural indebtedness being a State subject, State Governments take appropriate measures for development of agriculture sector
Borrowing from non-institutional sources is the major reason for debt-related farmers’ distress
Other imp reasons are crop failure, unseasonal rainfall etc
Indian farmers are mostly subsistence farmers which makesfarmers extremely prone for even smallest of difficulties.

Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima yojana

This scheme will reduce the uncertainity of farmers in casetheir crop fails due to unforseen circumstances.
Under the PMFBY, a uniform maximum premium of only 2% will be paid by farmers for all Kharif crops and 1.5% for all Rabi crops.
In case of annual commercial and horticultural crops, the maximum premium to be paid by farmers will be only 5%.
The premium rates to be paid by farmers are very low and balance premium will be paid by the Government.
There is no upper limit on Government subsidy.
Use of technology to capture the crop loss has been strongly encouraged.

Ways to go Ahead

Indian farmers are highly dependent on nature, this should be reduced by creating proper infrastructure.
Lack of Institutional financing is one of the major reasons for farmers suicide. Institutional financing has improved due to opening of bank accounts and kisan credit cards however more needs to be done.
Most of the Indian farmers dont use proper fertilizer and also they dont use technologically sound methods. They need to be trained properly to get the maximum out of farms.
Some of population should be shifted from farm sector to secondaryand tertiary sector. As of now 70% of the population is dependant upon the 15% of the GDP.
Mixed farming and Horticulture should be encouraged among thesmall farmers.

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