Rising trend of farm suicides in India

Rising trend of farm suicides in India

RISING TREND OF FARM SUICIDES IN INDIA: Bt cotton was first released for commercial growing in India in 2002, and the data on farm suicides show clearly that the last eight years were much worse than the preceding eight. As many as 1,35,756 farmers killed themselves in the 2003-10 period. For 1995-2002, the total was 1,21,157. On average, this means the number of farmers killing themselves each year between 2003 and 2010 is 1,825 higher than the numbers that took their lives in the earlier period. This is alarming since the total number of farmers is declining significantly.