Farmers’ suicide: trends and trials Mrs. Rath Atashi*, Prof. Rath Navaneeta** *Lecturer, Sociology, Rama Devi Junior College, Bhubaneswar **Professor, Sociology, Utkal University, Vani Vihar, Odisha, India Online published on 19 November, 2016. Abstract Farmer suicides continue to rise over the years reflecting a serious agrarian threat in the country. In the colonial and post colonial period, it manifested itself in the form of peasant unrests and riots occurring in some selected pockets of the country. However, with the onset of structural reforms, agriculture became vulnerable to a number of lop sided market policies that favoured more of the corporate and industrial houses than agriculture. The poor peasants were thrown open to a number of vagaries that they could not overcome. Agriculture became more and more capital intensive and input driven in character. With the negligible support from the government and the market, the poor peasants committed suicides that were reported in a majority of the states across the country. The current article makes an analysis of the post globalization phenomenon affecting agriculture and tries to study the trend of suicide in the country over the years. It makes a case analysis of the state of Odisha where farmer suicides have become an alarming issue for the regional government. The researchers have also made an attempt to discuss the efforts and initiatives taken by the central government, state governments and civil society organizations to bring down the rate of farmer suicide and the safety nets devised for the poor farmers who are prone to the epidemic through various social security schemes and programmes. Top Keywords Agriculture Farmer, Suicide Globalization Corporate, Feudalism Social Security. Top |