Ira Ahirrao

High School Finalist, Grade 9
Ellicott City, Maryland

Plowing Down Farmer Suicide

Walking home from school on a bolstering April afternoon, the sugarcane fields stretch on endlessly alongside a young boy rushing home to help his father with work. His usual summer stroll to and from school is met with the same views every day- the parched soil of the fields, crops fighting to stay upright from the exhausting heat of the summer sun, and farmers working in the fields. However, today is painfully different. The trail from school is muddy from a rare occurrence- last night’s heavy rainfall. Sudden downpour amidst excruciating heat is a combination all farmers dread, including the boy’s father. Squinting in the sun, he can see waterlogged crops and flooded fields. But instead of seeing workers hastening to salvage the few crops they can, it is eerily quiet in the fields. As the young boy enters his home, he walks upon a sight no child should ever see.

Reaching the Roots of the Issue: Every single day in India, about 48 farmers commit suicide (Kannuri & Jadhav, 2021). Solely in 2022, 11,290 farm workers committed suicide (Noronha, 2024). The reason these numbers are so dreadfully high boils down to two main factors- indebtedness and environmental effects. The first and most prevalent factor is indebtedness (Kaur, 2022). Over half of Indian farmers hold outstanding debt greater than they can pay off with their measly household income of about 10,000 rupees per month (Kumar, 2021). In farmer suicide hotspots such as Maharashtra and Kerala, approximately 87-99% of victims, depending on the region, were indebted and held three times as much debt as farmers that died of other causes (Behere & Bhise, 2009). This overwhelming debt of farmers accumulates primarily due to the usage of cash crops and the precarious means of obtaining credit, particularly through moneylenders. Cash crops such as sugarcane, cotton, and saffron are grown for export and, in theory, yield higher profits. The recent shift to cash crop cultivation from food crops, which are low cost and locally grown, places farmers in higher financial risk situations if their cash crops fail, as significant monetary and labor investments are required to grow cash crops, for which funds are normally borrowed (Merriott, 2016). Ideally, farmers gain these funds through credit loans through banks, however, more often than not, banks tend to discriminate against farm workers, with only 29% of farmers possessing access to formal credit sources. Banks hesitate to lend money to farmers due to an inherent negative stigma against farmers, lack of ability to assess the creditworthiness of farmers, and the potential reduced credit discipline of farmers due to loan waivers from the government (MSC, 2023). Without loans from banks, farmers often turn to moneylenders, who charge significantly higher interest rates —about 40% per year (Surendra, 2021). In the event of an extreme weather occurrence or another reason causing cash crops to fail, the loan debt from moneylenders will be substantially higher than that of a bank, pushing the farmers into a cycle of debt that is difficult to escape. Pressured by aggressive moneylenders and unable to compensate for the tremendous amount of debt, the farmers follow through with their last and most desperate resort, taking their own lives (Team, 2024).

Severe weather events have become increasingly common over the past few decades, and this issue can be traced back to climate change. Global warming is a common term thrown around when describing the effects of greenhouse gas emissions from human activities such as burning fossil fuels, mass livestock farming, and deforestation. However, what many are unaware of is  that rising temperatures from an overabundance of greenhouse gases absorbing the sun’s radiation in the atmosphere do not only hurt animals but also directly impact the livelihood of millions of people already struggling to put food on the table (MacMillan & Turrentine, 2024). Global warming has created an imbalance in cycles such as water and carbon, and due to this the intensity of severe weather and natural disasters has greatly escalated, interrupting the growing seasons of crops, and ultimately hurting farmers worldwide (Mishra, 2025).

Sowing A Solution: A large factor hindering farmers from receiving formal credit is poor financial literacy. Many farmers have limited knowledge of finances, which becomes problematic as their creditworthiness is assessed by banks and also as they may choose to not pay back loans, assuming they will receive loan waivers from the government. However, they are unaware of how highly selective these loan waivers are. By developing programs to teach financial literacy, explain the exact risks of using cash crops instead of food crops, warn against borrowing money from informal moneylenders, and provide access to resources such as Low-Input Sustainable Agriculture to farmers, the likelihood of farmers seeing higher financial success will increase (Vattikuti Foundation).

Apart from financial solutions, a critical and often overlooked solution is reducing one’s carbon footprint. The average US resident consumes the annual energy usage of the average Indian in only one month (Ritchie, 2021). In the event of agricultural disasters due to climate change effects, the truth is that while one reaps the rewards of unsustainable practices, it is another’s, specifically a farmer’s, loss. Therefore, it is crucial for people to implement sustainable practices such as using energy-efficient technology, consuming less water, using eco-friendly products, and minimizing pollution (Gu, 2024).

Additionally, if possible, citizens should donate to organizations such as Snewhan which helps the families and children of farmer suicide victims.

Considering all proposed solutions, the most impactful means of attaining them is advocacy. No one person alone can inhibit climate change, nor can they unburden millions of farmers from substantial debt. However, citizens joining voices and forces to fight against the cycle of climate and financial injustice to farmers will combat the tragic event of farmer suicide, and render it unnecessary.