Lok Sabha Question No. 2262 (UNSTARRED), answered on 2023-03-14
Subject: Farmers' Suicides
Ministry: AGRICULTURE AND FARMERS WELFARE
Asked by: Behanan Benny

## GOVERNMENT OF INDIA MINISTRY OF AGRICULTURE AND FARMERS WELFARE DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE AND FARMERS WELFARE

## LOK SABHA UNSTARRED QUESTION NO.2262

TO BE ANSWERED ON THE14 TH  MARCH, 2023

## FARMERS' SUICIDES

2262.  SHRI BENNY BEHANAN:

Will the Minister of AGRICULTURE AND FARMERS WELFARE कृ ष एवं कसान कयाण मंी be pleased to state:

- (a) the reasons behind farmer suicides shooting up from 2,743 in 2021 to 2,942 in 2022 despite the Government introducing loan waiver schemes; and
- (b) the steps that the Government is taking to address agrarian stress caused by unprecedented droughts and floods induced by climate change?

## ANSWER

THE MINISTER OF AGRICULTURE AND FARMERS WELFARE कृ ष एवं कसान कयाण मंी (SHRI NARENDRA SINGH TOMAR)

- (a)  &  (b):  The  National  Crime  Records  Bureau  (NCRB)  under  the  Ministry  of  Home  Affairs compiles and disseminates information on suicides in its publication titled 'Accidental Deaths and Suicides in India' (ADSI). NCRB  has published reports upto 2021 on its website (https://ncrb.gov.in).In the ADSI Reports 2021, separate reasons for farmers' suicide have not been given.

Agriculture is a State Subject. However, Government of India supplements the efforts of States through appropriate policy measures,  budgetary  support and various  schemes/ programmes. The various schemes/ programmes of the Government of India for the welfare of farmers are as under:

## 1. Unprecedented enhancement in budget allocation In the year 2013-14 the budget allocation of Ministry of Agriculture (including DARE) and Ministry of Fisheries, Animal Husbandry & Dairying was only 30223.88 crore. This has increased by more

than 4.35 times to Rs. 1,31,612.41 crore in 2023-24.

## 2. Income support to farmers through PM KISAN

Launch of PM-KISAN in 2019 -an income support scheme providing Rs. 6000 per year in 3 equal installments. More than Rs . 2.24 lakh crore has been released so far to more than 11 crore farmers as of now.

## 3. Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana (PMFBY)

Six year - PMFBY was launched in 2016 addressing problems of high premium rates for farmers and reduction in sum insured due to capping. In past 6 Years of implementation - 37.66 crore farmer applications have been enrolled and over 12.38 crore (Provisional) farmer applicants have received claims. During this period nearly Rs. 25,174 crore were paid by farmers as their share of premium against which claims of over Rs. 1,30,185 crore (Provisional) have been paid to them. Thus for every 100 rupees of premium paid by farmers, they have received about Rs. 517 as claims.

## 4. Institutional credit for agriculture sector

- i. Increased from Rs. 7.3 lakh crore in 2013-14 with a target to reach Rs. 18.5 lakh crore in 2022-23.
- ii. Benefit of concessional institutional credit through KCC at 4% interest per annum has also now been extended to Animal Husbandry and Fisheries farmers for meeting their shortterm working capital needs.
- iii. A  special  drive  has  been  undertaken  since  February  2020  to  provide  concessional institutional credit with focus on covering all PM-KISAN beneficiaries through Kisan Credit Cards (KCC). As on 30.12.2022, 389.33 lakh new KCC applications have been sanctioned with a sanctioned credit limit of Rs. 4,51,672 crore as part of the drive.

## 5. Fixing  of  Minimum  Support  Price  (MSP)  at  one-and-a  half  times  the  cost  of production -

- i. Government has increased the MSP for all mandated Kharif, Rabi and other commercial crops with a return of at least 50 per cent over all India weighted average cost of production from 2018-19.
- ii. MSP for Paddy (common) has increased to Rs. 2040 per quintal in 2022-23 from   Rs. 1310 per quintal in 2013-14.
- iii. MSP for Wheat increased from Rs. 1400 per quintal in 2013-14 to Rs. 2125 per quintal in 2022-23.

## 6. Promotion of organic farming in the country

- i. Paramparagat Krishi Vikas Yojana (PKVY) was initiated in 2015-16 to promote organic farming in the country. 32,384 clusters have been formed and an area of 6.53 lakh hectare has  been  covered  benefitting  16.19  lakh  farmers.  In  addition,  Under  Namami  Gange Programme 1.23 lakh hectare area covered and under natural farming 4.09 lakh hectare area covered. Farmers in Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Bihar and Jharkhand have takenup organic farming on either side of the river Ganga to control river water pollution as well as to fetch additional income to farmers.
- ii. Government also proposes to promote sustainable natural farming systems through the scheme Bhartiya Prakratik Krishi Padhati (BPKP). The proposed scheme aims at cutting down cost of cultivation, enhancing farmer's income and ensuring resource conservation and, safe and healthy soils, environment and food.
- iii. Mission Organic Value Chain Development in North East Region (MOVCDNER) has been launched. 379 Farmer Producer Companies have been formed comprising of 1,89,039 farmers and covering 1,72,966 hectare area.

## 7. Per Drop More Crop

Per Drop More Crop (PDMC) scheme was launched in the year 2015-16 which aims to increase water use efficiency, reducing cost of inputs and increasing productivity at the farm level through Micro Irrigation technologies i.e. drip and sprinkler irrigation systems. So far, an area of 72 lakh hectare has been covered under Micro irrigation through the PDMC scheme from the year 201516.

## 8. Micro Irrigation Fund

A Micro Irrigation Fund of initial corpus Rs 5,000 crore has been created with NABARD.  In the Budget Announcement for 2021-22, the corpus of the fund is to be increased to Rs.10,000 crore. Projects worth Rs 4,710.96 crore covering 17.09 lakh hectares have been approved.

## 9. Promotion of Farmer Producer Organisations (FPOs)

- i. A new Central Sector Scheme for Formation & Promotion of new 10,000 FPOs launched by Hon'ble Prime Minister on 29 th February, 2020 with budget outlay of     Rs 6865 Crore till 2027-28.
- ii. As on 30.11.2022, 4028 no. of FPOs have been registered under new FPO scheme.
- iii. Equity Grant of Rs. 65.33 Crore has been released to 1,730 FPOs as on 31.12.2022.
- iv. As on 31.12.2022, Credit Guarantee Cover worth Rs. 101.78 crore issued to 583 FPOs.

10. A National Beekeeping and Honey Mission (NBHM) has been launched in 2020 as part of  the  Atma  Nirbhar  Bharat  Abhiyan  to  increase  productivity  of  crops  through  pollination  and increase in honey production as an additional source of income. Rs. 500 crore for the period 20202021 to 2022-2023 has been allocated for beekeeping sector. 114 projects for assistance of about Rs. 139.23 crore, approved/ sanctioned for funding under NBHM during 2020-21, 2021-22 & 202223 till date.

## 11. Agricultural Mechanization

Agricultural mechanization is an extremely vital to modernize agriculture and reduce drudgery of farming operations. During the period from 2014-15 to March, 2022 an amount of Rs.5,490.82 crore have been allocated for agricultural mechanization. 13,88,314 numbers of machines and equipments have been provided to farmers on subsidy basis.18,824 custom hiring centers, 403 high-tech  hubs  and  16,791  farm  machinery  banks  have  been  established  to  make  available agricultural machines and equipments to the farmers on rental basis. During the current year i.e. 2022-23, so far an amount of Rs. 585.50 crore have been released for distribution of around 75,391 machines on subsidy, establishment of 3,468 CHCs, 64 Hi-tech hubs and 2281 Village Level Farm Machinery Banks.

## 12. Providing Soil Health Cards to farmers

Soil Health Card Scheme was introduced in the year 2014-15 to optimize usage of nutrients. The following numbers of cards have been issued to farmers;

- i. Cycle-I (2015 to 2017) - 10.74 crore
- ii. Cycle-II (2017 to 2019)- 12.19 crore
- iii. Model Village Programme (2019-20)- 23.71 lakh
- iv. In the year 2020-21- 11.52 lakh

## 13. Setting up of National Agriculture Market ( e-NAM) extension Platform

- i. 1260 mandis of 22 States and 03 UTs have been integrated to e-NAM platform.
- ii. As  on  31.12.2022,  more  than  1.74  Crore  Farmers  &  2.39  Lakh  traders  have  been registered on e-NAM portal.
- iii. Total volume of 7.07 Crore MT & 20.88 Crore numbers (bamboo, betel leaves, coconut, lemon & sweet corn) collectively worth approximately Rs. 2.42 lakh crore of trade has been recorded on e-NAM platform as on 31.12.2022.

14. Launch of the National Mission for Edible Oils - Oil Palm NMEO has been approved with a total outlay of Rs 11,040 crore. This will bring an additional area of 6.5 lakh hectare under Oil Palm plantation with 3.28 lakh hectare in the north-eastern states and 3.22 lakh hectare in the rest of India in the next 5 years. The major focus of the Mission is to provide Viability Prices of fresh fruit bunches (FFBs) to the farmers linked with assured procurement by industry with a simpler price fixing formula.

## 15. Agri Infrastructure Fund (AIF)

Since inception of AIF in the year 2020, the scheme has sanctioned an amount of Rs.16,117 crore worth agriculture infrastructure in the country for 22,354 projects. With the support of the scheme, various agriculture infrastructures were created and some of the infrastructure are at the final  stage  of  completion.  These infrastructures include 8,752 warehouses, 4,188 primary processing  units,  2,635  custom  hiring  centres,  1,217  sorting  &  grading  units,  859  cold  store projects, 163 assaying units and around 4,257 other kinds of post-harvest management projects and community farming assets.

## 16. Improvement in farm produce logistics, Introduction of Kisan Rail.

Kisan  Rail  has  been  launched  by  Ministry  of  Railways  to  exclusively  cater  to  movement  of perishable agrihorti commodities. First Kisan Rail was started in July 2020. Till 31 st  December, 2022, 2359 services on 167 routes have been operated.

## 17. MIDH - Cluster Development Programme

The Cluster Development Programme (CDP) is designed to leverage geographical specialisation of horticulture clusters and promote integrated and market-led development of pre-production, production, post-harvest, logistics, branding, and marketing activities. DA&FW has identified 55 horticulture clusters, of which 12 have been selected for the pilot phase of the CDP.

## 18. Creation of a Start-up Eco system in agriculture and allied sector

So far,  1102  Startups  during  FY  2019-20  to  2022-23  have  been  finally  selected  by  different knowledge partners and agribusiness incubators of DA&FW. A total of Rs. 66.83 crore grants-inaidhas been released for funding to these Startups to the respective Knowledge Partners (KPs) & RKVY RAFTAAR Agri Business Incubator (R-ABIs) as grants-in-aid support by DA&FW.

## 19. Achievement in Export of Agri and Allied Agri- Commodities

The  country  has  witnessed  emphatic  growth  in  export  of  agri  and  allied  commodities.  As compared to previous year 2020-21, the Agri and allied export has increased from 41.86 billion USD in 2020-21 to 50.24 billion USD in 2021-22 i.e. an increase of 19.99%.

## 20. DARE/ICAR achievements for climate resilience in agriculture

The ICAR-DARE project on 'National Innovation on Climate Resilient Agriculture' (NICRA) aims to  minimize  the  climatic  change  impacts  on  agriculture  and  allied  sectors  through  strategic research  on  adaptation  and  mitigation,  demonstration  of  technologies  at  farmers'  fields,  and creating  awareness  among  farmers  and  other  stakeholders.  The  thrust  areas  of  strategic research include identifying most vulnerable districts/regions to climate change, evolving crop varieties  and management practices for adaptation and mitigation, assessing climate change impacts  on  livestock,  fisheries  and  poultry,  and  identifying  adaptation  strategies.  Significant achievements of ICAR towards bringing climate resilience to farm sector during 2014-22 are highlighted below:

-  In total, 1752 climate resilient crop varieties including 848 of cereals, 281 of oilseeds, 305 of pulses, 95 of forage crops, 169 of fibre crops, 45 of sugarcane, and 9 of other crops were developed.
-  Sixty-eight climate resilient technologies were demonstrated to 13967 households of 446 villages.
-  Established  Climate  resilient  villages  in  151  vulnerable  districts  involving  1  lakh  farm families.
-  Developed a Mobile App for accessing information on risk and vulnerability at district level for adaptation planning.
-  Forty-six multi-enterprise integrated farming system (IFS) models for small and marginal farmers were developed. The models have potential to enhance the annual farm income to the tune of Rs. 3.6 lakhs per hectare.
-  Updated 15 district agriculture contingency plans and organized seven interface meetings with department of agriculture of state Governments i.e. Maharashtra, Karnataka, Odisha, Telangana, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan to enhance the preparedness of state governments to delayed/deficit/excess rainfall situations.
-  Climate change research facilities such as high through-put phenotyping platforms, free air temperature elevation (FATE), carbon dioxide and temperature gradient tunnels (CTGC), rainout shelters, animal calorimeter, shipping vessel, flux towers and satellite data receiving station etc. have been established and are being used to study the impact of elevated carbon dioxide and temperature on crops, livestock, fisheries, soil, water, pests and diseases.

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