AN extremely outrageous situation has surfaced in Anantpur District. Forty-five suicides of farmers have taken place within fifty days in early 2003, according to Eenadu, a local newspaper. P. Sainath has reported that 1826 suicides have taken place in Anantapur district between 1997 and February 2001, out of which 913 were part of the report sent to the State Legislature.

However, these figures were not taken seriously because hundreds of them went into the police registers with these lines: “the man (or woman) had severe stomach-ache. Unable to bear the pain, he (or she) swallowed pesticide in despair”. Thanks to government for the free supply of the pesticide, Monocrotophos, which has become more effective in killing farmers than the pests. Administrators brushed the cases under the carpet describing them as “personal”.

Anantapur, a known drought prone area, is one of the two districts in the country receiving lowest rainfall. Droughts and famines are not something strange to the people of Anantapur. Yet, the government has not taken any effective measures to tackle the drought conditions in the district. Since 1997, farmers’ suicides have been reported in Anantapur district and till date it continues. The farmers’ suicides reported in other parts of the State and elsewhere in the country were seasonal and did not continue for such a long spell of time. But in Anantapur district, this seems to be a continuous phenomenon going on for almost last five years. Thus, the case of Anantapur is unusually distressing. Low rainfall and drought conditions only perpetuate the already prevalent crisis and do not fully explain why farmers should take recourse to such an extreme step.

The cropping pattern has changed over a period of time, with Anantapur becoming a monocrop district. It is seen that the area under groundnut has tremendously increased during last two decades in the district.

From a mere 16 percent of the gross cropped area, the area under groundnut has increased to above 70 percent between 1930-31 and 1999-2000. The increase is sharper from late 1980s onwards. It is very clear that most of the cropped/cultivated area in Anantapur is under groundnut all through the 90s of last century and the trend continues till date. However, there is no institutional arrangement by the government to provide support for the farmers in the context of such a massive commercial farming.

Government of India has taken serious efforts to boost the oil seed production since mid 1980s and the total production of nine varieties of oilseed more than doubled from 10 million tones in 1980 to 20.5 million tones in 2001-02. Edible oil consumption increased from 3.3 million tones to 5.4 million tones in 1993-94 and imports fell from 1.04 million tones in 1985-86 to 0.35 million tones in 1993-94. It had reached a situation of self-sufficiency in edible oil within a decade. However, now under the liberalization regime, India has become the biggest importer of edible oil in the world. Highly subsidised edible oils imported in the last five years have had a direct impact on oilseed prices, which have registered a sharp fall. At present, edible oil imports account for the largest share of the total agricultural imports in the country. During 2001-02 (April to October), edible oil imports accounted for 62.7 per cent of all the agricultural imports and in 2002-03 (April to October) it rose to 63.5 per cent of the total agricultural imports in India. (Government of India, Economic Survey figures, 2002-03).

A recent study done by the government of Andhra Pradesh reported that more than 55 percent of the farmers are not getting the Minimum Support Price (MSP). Secondly, most of the farmers are tied to the traders and middlemen who are dealing in agricultural inputs. This depresses the price that farmers are to get for their output. The price level is not matching with the cost of cultivation because of the government policy on edible oil imports.

Prior to 1980s, a variety of cereal crops that provided some amount of food security were cultivated in Anantapur district. Local varieties of cereal crops (coarse grains) were drought resistant to a great extent and dependency on market for inputs was not much. But at present the monoculture of groundnut has completely transformed socio-economic life of the people. Over 85 percent of the area is under rain fed cultivation making this district vulnerable to the vagaries of monsoon. Most of the groundnut cultivation also depends on rain in Anantapur. Groundnut being the major crop in the district the vulnerability of the farmers has increased. In the absence of adequate institutional support in the form of cheap credit, input supply, extension services and marketing facilities, the farmers have to depend more and more on the middlemen who combine the role of trader, moneylender and input supplier. By combining all these roles, the middlemen control a lion’s share of the total production leaving the farmers in distress.

A recent study conducted by the National Institute of Rural Development on the phenomenon of farmers' suicides in AP and Karnataka concluded that the debt trap, in which the small and marginal farmers are caught, is the main reason for suicides.