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According to the latest report of the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), Accidental deaths and suicides in India 2023, there were 10,786 deaths by suicides in the agricultural sector in India in the year 2023. Of these, 4,690 were farmers and 6,096 were agricultural laborers. This also means that 29.55 farmers take their own lives every month, and approximately one farmer takes their own life every day.
The agriculture sector accounted for 6.3 per cent of the 171,418 total suicides in the country in 2023. Of the 4,690 farmers who died by suicide in 2023, 4,553 were men and 137 were women. Similarly, of the 6,096 labourers who died by suicide, 5,433 were men and 663 were women.
Comparing the current report with the NCRB report for 2022, suicides among agricultural workers have increased. In 2022, 6,083 agricultural workers died by suicide. At the same time, the statistics show a decrease in farmer suicides. In 2022, a total of 5,207 farmers took their own lives in the country. Thus, farmer suicides have decreased by approximately 10 per cent, while agricultural labourer suicides have increased by approximately 0.20 per cent.
According to the latest report, there were no suicides in the agricultural sector in West Bengal, Bihar, Odisha, Jharkhand, Himachal Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh, Goa, Manipur, Mizoram, Nagaland, Tripura, Chandigarh, Delhi and Lakshadweep.
Maharashtra recorded the highest number of farmer suicides at 2,518, followed by Karnataka with 1,425, Andhra Pradesh with 201, Punjab with 141, Madhya Pradesh with 64, Chhattisgarh with 73, Tamil Nadu with 67, and Telangana with 56.
Maharashtra also leads the list of agricultural labourer suicides, with 1,633 farm labourers dying by suicide in 2023. Whereas 998 suicides have been recorded in Karnataka, 683 in Madhya Pradesh, 724 in Andhra Pradesh, 564 in Tamil Nadu, 395 in Chhattisgarh and 321 in Uttar Pradesh.
A total of 10 suicides were reported in eight UTs in 2022, which increased to 32 in 2023. Jammu and Kashmir accounted for the highest number of suicides at 13.
An astonishing finding is that there has been a 50 per cent increase in farmer suicides in the Union Territories (UTs) of Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu. Here, 15 farmers died by suicide in 2023.