Fields of woe: How unseasonal rains have affected India's farmers

In his Budget speech this February, finance minister Arun Jaitley listed out five challenges ahead of the economy. The first on his list was stress in agricultural incomes. The FM may have had in mind poor productivity, water scarcity, food grain storage and all the allied ills that plague Indian agriculture, but he’s unlikely to have anticipated what the Ides of March had in store: unseasonal rains and hailstorms across the country that wreaked havoc on the winter crop. The damage on farms is pushing debtridden farmers beyond the brink.

Last month’s burst of unseasonal rain and hail comes on the back of a decline in global commodity prices, including cotton, wheat, basmati rice, sugarcane, tea and rubber over the last year. A few government moves over the past 12-18 months haven’t helped either. “MNREGA [the rural employment guarantee scheme] has been severely curtailed, crop procurement has been restricted and states have been asked not to give bonuses via an executive order from the central government. This has deepened the agrarian crisis across the countryside and we can expect a much higher rate of farmers’ suicides in the coming months,” says Biraj Patnaik, principal adviser to the commissioners of the Supreme Court. Not surprisingly, sowing has declined in both the kharif season (by 2.3 million hectares) and the current rabi season (by 4 million hectares).

The even bigger worry is that the agriculture sector in India is stuck in a long drawn-out crisis. The primary problem is structural — agriculture contributes just 14% to GDP but employs 49% of the workforce, a situation that is unsustainable. About 80% of Indian farmers are small and marginal; as a result their cost of production is much higher. The problem of Indian agriculture calls for a longterm solution. In the immediate term, though, lakhs of farming households across the country — as the reports over the next pages will tell you — are crying out for a helping hand, and more. Read on:

UP's Jalaun: State government's apathy turns Bundelkhand into a region of invisible farmer suicides

Haryana's Rewari: Distressed farmers hope for a future beyond agriculture for the next generation

Why there appears to be no end to the agony for Beed's beleaguered farmers

Hooghly: Farmers taking their lives because of inability to sell potatoes at reasonable prices

Telangana: Unseasonal rains coupled with unreliable power supply have driven farmers to despair

Unnao: Farmers dub agriculture compensation as "lip service"