The Hindu : Kerala / Kochi News : Relief measures fail to prevent farmer suicides

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Kerala - Kochi

Relief measures fail to prevent farmer suicides

E.M. Manoj

24 farmers committed suicide between May 1 and October 31 this year

216 farmer-suicides were reported in 2007
‘Quality of materials provided to farmers poor’

KALPETTA: In spite of the relief measures implemented by the Central and State governments, suicides by farmers have been reported in Wayanad.

As per the data from the Revenue Department, 435 farmers committed suicide between June 1, 1999, and July 31, 2008. Crop failure and debt were believed to be the main reasons for the suicides.

According to a survey by the Save Farmers Campaign (SFC), a joint initiative of Wayanad NGOs, 1,690 people committed suicide between May 30, 2000, and May 30, 2008.

Most of the family members of the victims were not ready to admit that the suicide was due to financial crisis as it would undermine their social status. So, most of the suicides were treated as unnatural deaths in the FIRs.

Since 98 per cent of these people belonged to the agrarian sector, their death must be treated as farmer-suicides, Jose Illanji Mattom, programme manager of the SFC, told The Hindu. “We collected the data directly from the kin of the victims,” Mr. Jose said.

According to the data, eight farmer-suicides were reported in the district in 1999. But the toll increased to 137 in 2000 and 169 the following year. In the following years, the figures were 181, 207, 171, 204 and 199.

In 2007, 216 farmer-suicides were reported from the district. This apart, 361 tribal people involved in the agrarian sector were also believed to have committed suicide during this period.

In 2007, the majority of farmer-suicides were reported from Tavinjal Panchayat, 139, and the lowest from Vengappally panchayat, 11.

As per the survey, even after the implementation of the loan waiver schemes of the governments this year, 24 farmers committed suicide between May 1 and October 31. Out of this, 16 were from Tavinjal panchayat and three from Vellamunda panchayat.

In 2008, as many as 96 farmer-suicides were reported as per the data.

“Loan waiver schemes are a short-term measure to control the suicide rate but the root cause of the financial crisis of farmers still prevails,” Mr. Jose says.

The main reason for the drop in the suicide rate this year is a result of the awareness and confidence created by farmers’ movements like Infam and the Farmers Relief Forum (FRF) through protests against the threat of revenue recovery by financial institutions, Surendran, district president of Infam, said.

The loan waiver scheme might have alleviated the financial crisis of some of the farmers but it did not benefit all the farmers in the district due to anomalies in the scheme, he added.

Though various schemes had been implemented in the district and the governments had pumped in crores of rupees through various agencies to solve the crisis, the farmers did not get much benefit, Sudhakara Swamy, chairman of FRF district committee, said.

Planting materials, manure and other essential materials were not provided on time and the quality of those supplied was poor, Mr. Swamy alleged.

He said besides the lack of good planting materials, crops in the district like pepper, paddy and ginger suffered from various diseases.

There was no price stability or steady market for their produce.

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