The latest NCRB data shows a marginal decline in farming-related suicides, but the numbers reveal a more disturbing reality: landless agricultural labourers now account for the majority of these deaths. India’s agrarian distress is not receding—it is changing in character.
The statistic is as stark as it is heartbreaking: on average, nearly one person associated with farming dies by suicide every hour in India.
According to the Accidental Deaths and Suicides in India 2024 report released by the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), 10,546 people linked to the agricultural sector died by suicide during 2024. Of India’s total 1,70,746 suicides, farming-related deaths accounted for about 6.2 per cent.
At first glance, the figures appear to offer a measure of reassurance. The total is marginally lower than the 10,786 agricultural suicides recorded in 2023, marking the second consecutive annual decline after the peak of 11,290 deaths in 2022. Yet a closer examination suggests that the improvement is modest and should not be mistaken for evidence that the agrarian crisis has eased.
The numbers remain sobering. Every day, an average of 28 farmers and agricultural labourers lose their lives. Behind each statistic lies a family, a livelihood interrupted and a future abruptly cut short. Seen over a longer period, the recent decline appears less like a decisive turnaround and more like a fluctuation within a crisis that has persisted for decades.
More significantly, the latest NCRB data points to an important structural shift in rural India. The crisis is no longer confined primarily to land-owning cultivators. It is increasingly affecting those who own no land at all.
Of the 10,546 farming-related suicides recorded in 2024, as many as 5,913 were agricultural labourers, accounting for approximately 56 per cent of the total. This is the second-highest proportion recorded during the past five years. By comparison, agricultural labourers accounted for about 47.5 per cent of farming-related suicides in 2020, and their share has risen steadily since then.
The trend among cultivators presents a different picture. Although suicides among land-owning farmers had generally shown signs of moderation in recent years, their share increased slightly in 2024—from 43.5 per cent in 2023 to nearly 44 per cent. While this change is relatively small, it indicates that distress continues to affect both cultivators and agricultural workers, albeit in different ways.
The growing vulnerability of agricultural labourers reflects broader changes in the rural economy.
Findings from NABARD’s All India Rural Financial Inclusion Survey illustrate this transformation. Between 2012-13 and 2018-19, the share of farm income in total rural household income declined from 49 per cent to 37.7 per cent. During the same period, income from wage labour increased from 32 per cent to 40 per cent.
These figures suggest that an increasing number of rural households are relying less on income generated from their own farms and more on wages earned by working on someone else’s land. For families that own little or no agricultural land, this dependence creates a distinct form of vulnerability.
Unlike land-owning cultivators, agricultural labourers are often excluded from many of the policy instruments designed to support farming households. They typically do not benefit directly from crop insurance schemes, have limited access to institutional credit linked to land ownership, and are generally outside the scope of farm loan waiver programmes. When crops fail or agricultural activity declines because of drought, floods or other climatic shocks, employment opportunities for these workers also diminish.
The consequence is a cycle of economic insecurity that extends well beyond a single failed agricultural season.
The latest NCRB figures therefore tell a story that goes beyond the overall number of suicides. They indicate that India’s agrarian distress is evolving. The burden is increasingly shifting towards the most economically vulnerable segment of the rural population—landless agricultural labourers, whose livelihoods depend almost entirely on seasonal employment and daily wages.
Understanding this shift is essential. Unless public policy recognises the changing profile of agrarian distress, the underlying causes of the crisis are likely to persist even if the headline numbers show marginal year-to-year variations.
Maharashtra Remains at the Epicentre
The geographical distribution of farming-related suicides continues to reveal deep regional disparities, with Maharashtra once again accounting for the largest share of such deaths in the country.
According to the NCRB, Maharashtra recorded 3,824 suicides among farmers and agricultural labourers in 2024—around 36.5 per cent of the national total. In other words, more than one in every three farming-related suicides in India occurred in a single state.
The NCRB does not attribute individual suicides to specific causes, and its data should not be interpreted as establishing direct causal relationships. However, the figures coincide with a year in which Maharashtra experienced extensive agricultural losses due to extreme weather events.
Official estimates indicate that heavy rainfall, floods and other climate-related events affected more than 20.37 lakh hectares of cropped area in the state during 2024. Nationally, approximately 40.72 lakh hectares of agricultural land were affected by similar events, meaning Maharashtra alone accounted for nearly half of the total damaged area. Such climatic shocks inevitably place additional pressure on already fragile rural livelihoods, particularly in regions dependent on rain-fed agriculture.
Karnataka recorded the second-highest number of farming-related suicides, with 2,971 deaths, representing an increase of about 22.5 per cent over the previous year. Madhya Pradesh reported 835 deaths, a rise of more than seven per cent, while Rajasthan also witnessed a double-digit increase.
The picture, however, is not uniform across the country.
Andhra Pradesh, which recorded 780 farming-related suicides and ranked fourth nationally, registered a decline of more than 15 per cent compared with 2023. Tamil Nadu reported 503 deaths and Chhattisgarh 486. These contrasting trends underline the fact that India’s agrarian distress is shaped by a combination of regional factors, including climatic conditions, cropping patterns, access to irrigation, market structures and state-level policy responses.
Among the Union Territories, Puducherry presents an especially striking case. Between 2019 and 2022, the NCRB recorded no farming-related suicides there. Ten cases were reported in 2023. In 2024, that number rose sharply to 33, with every recorded victim classified as an agricultural labourer. Although the absolute numbers remain relatively small, the sudden increase highlights the need for closer examination of local economic and social conditions.
A Crisis Expanding Beyond Its Traditional Geography
The latest data also suggests that agrarian distress is no longer concentrated only in the states that have historically dominated discussions on farmer suicides.
Uttar Pradesh, despite recording lower absolute numbers than Maharashtra or Karnataka, has witnessed a noticeable increase in suicides among agricultural labourers. Similar patterns are emerging in several other states, indicating that the crisis is gradually spreading beyond its traditional geographical boundaries.
Over the past five years, fourteen states have reported an increase in farming-related suicides. Equally significant is another structural change: in thirteen states, agricultural labourers now account for more suicides than land-owning cultivators. In 2019, only nine states fell into this category.
This shift deserves careful attention. It suggests that the agrarian crisis is increasingly affecting those who possess the fewest economic resources and the weakest social protection. For many agricultural labourers, the absence of land ownership means exclusion from several support mechanisms available to cultivators, leaving them particularly vulnerable during periods of crop failure, declining agricultural employment or adverse weather conditions.
A Crisis Nearly Three Decades Old
While the latest NCRB figures have renewed public attention, India’s agrarian suicide crisis has a much longer history.
An analysis by the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), covering the period from 1995 to 2023, estimates that nearly 3,94,206 farmers and agricultural labourers died by suicide during those twenty-eight years—an average of more than 13,600 deaths annually.
Researchers have offered a range of explanations for this prolonged crisis. Many studies point to the combined effects of rising cultivation costs, fluctuating commodity prices, indebtedness, limited irrigation, climatic uncertainty, fragmented landholdings and inadequate risk protection. Rather than identifying a single cause, most scholars describe farmer suicides as the outcome of multiple economic, environmental and institutional pressures operating simultaneously.
Several policy analysts have also argued that the liberalisation of agricultural markets during the mid-1990s exposed many small and marginal farmers to greater price volatility and increased competition. At the same time, the cost of seeds, fertilisers and other agricultural inputs continued to rise, often increasing financial risks for farmers with limited access to institutional credit.
The experience with Bt cotton illustrates the complexity of these changes. Although the technology contributed to higher productivity in several regions during its early years, researchers have also documented that rising input costs, pest resistance in some areas, changing climatic conditions and volatile market prices reduced its long-term benefits for many small cultivators. The outcome varied considerably across regions, reflecting differences in irrigation, farming practices and local economic conditions.
The decade between 2000 and 2009 proved particularly devastating. More than 1.54 lakh farming-related suicides were recorded across India during those ten years. The year 2002 remains one of the darkest chapters, with nearly 18,000 lives lost in a single year.
Throughout much of this period, Maharashtra and Karnataka consistently recorded suicide rates significantly above the national average. Southern and western India together accounted for nearly three-fourths of all farming-related suicides recorded since the mid-1990s, highlighting the long-standing vulnerability of regions dependent on commercial crops, rain-fed cultivation and highly variable weather patterns.
Welfare Measures Helped, But Structural Challenges Persisted
Over the past two decades, several policy interventions have helped moderate the agrarian crisis in parts of the country, though their impact has varied considerably across states.
Among the most significant has been the introduction of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), which provided rural households with an alternative source of income during periods of agricultural distress. By creating wage employment outside the farming season, the programme helped reduce the immediate financial vulnerability of many rural families and, in several states, coincided with a gradual decline in farming-related suicides after 2010.
Kerala offers one of the clearest examples. The state recorded 1,118 farming-related suicides in 2005, but this number declined to just 105 by 2014. West Bengal also witnessed a sharp reduction during the same period, while Madhya Pradesh recorded a noticeable improvement.
The experience of Maharashtra and Karnataka, however, tells a different story.
Despite welfare programmes and periodic policy interventions, both states continued to report among the highest numbers of farming-related suicides in the country. Their agricultural economies remain heavily dependent on rain-fed cultivation and commercially important but economically volatile crops such as cotton and sugarcane. In such regions, temporary relief measures often proved insufficient to offset the combined pressures of climate uncertainty, fluctuating market prices, rising cultivation costs and persistent indebtedness.
Recent NCRB data suggests that, after several years of relative moderation, the downward trend may once again be weakening—particularly among agricultural labourers. This underscores the limitations of short-term relief measures when deeper structural challenges remain unresolved.
Climate Stress and Agrarian Distress
The growing impact of climate variability has become an increasingly important area of research in understanding agrarian distress.
Several peer-reviewed studies have reported a statistically significant association between rainfall deficits and higher rates of farmer suicides in some drought-prone states. Researchers analysing data from 2014-15 to 2020-21 across Chhattisgarh, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Telangana found that years marked by deficient rainfall frequently coincided with higher levels of agrarian distress.
These findings do not suggest that climate alone causes suicides. Rather, they indicate that climatic shocks can intensify existing economic vulnerabilities by reducing crop yields, increasing input costs, limiting employment opportunities and making debt repayment more difficult.
The geographical overlap is notable.
Nearly 62 per cent of Maharashtra’s land area, 44 per cent of Madhya Pradesh and about 76 per cent of Chhattisgarh are classified as drought-prone. These are also among the states that have consistently recorded high levels of farming-related suicides over the years.
Climate change, therefore, is increasingly emerging not merely as an environmental challenge but also as a significant economic and social risk for rural India.
The Numbers May Not Tell the Entire Story
While NCRB statistics remain the country’s most comprehensive official database on suicides, several researchers have pointed out that administrative records may not always capture the full extent of the agrarian crisis.
Differences in reporting practices, verification procedures and classification methods can result in variations between district-level records and the figures ultimately reflected in national datasets.
Yavatmal district in Maharashtra illustrates this challenge.
For the period between 2014 and 2021, records maintained by the district administration reportedly documented 2,617 farmer suicides, whereas police records for the same period reflected 1,207 cases. Such differences do not necessarily imply errors by any single agency, but they do highlight the complexity of documenting farming-related suicides consistently across multiple administrative systems.
Improving the quality, consistency and transparency of data collection would help policymakers better understand the scale and changing nature of agrarian distress.
The Invisible Crisis Affecting Women Farmers
One of the least visible dimensions of the agrarian crisis concerns women engaged in agriculture.
Across large parts of rural India, women contribute substantially to agricultural work—whether through cultivation, livestock management, harvesting or post-harvest activities. Yet many continue to lack formal recognition as farmers because agricultural land is often registered in the names of male family members.
This has important implications for official statistics.
When women engaged in farming die by suicide, they may in some instances be classified under broader occupational categories such as “housewife” rather than as farmers or agricultural labourers. Researchers and women’s rights organisations have argued that this practice can lead to an underestimation of the true extent of agrarian distress among women.
The absence of formal land ownership also limits access to institutional credit, crop insurance, compensation schemes and several government support programmes, further increasing economic vulnerability.
The Human Cost Beyond the Statistics
The impact of a farming-related suicide extends far beyond the individual who loses his or her life.
Field studies conducted in affected regions indicate that bereaved families often face severe financial hardship almost immediately after the death of the principal earning member. Many are compelled to sell agricultural land, livestock or household assets to repay debts or simply to meet daily expenses.
Access to compensation and rehabilitation measures also remains uneven.
Several surveys have found that many widows remain unaware of available assistance programmes or experience significant delays in receiving financial support. In numerous cases, women also face difficulties in securing legal ownership or inheritance rights over agricultural land, further weakening their economic position.
As farming becomes less viable, surviving family members are frequently pushed towards informal occupations such as wage labour, dairy farming, livestock rearing or petty trade. For younger generations, interrupted education, migration and insecure employment often become part of a continuing cycle of vulnerability.
Seasonal migration has emerged as another consequence of agrarian distress. In tribal, drought-prone and economically disadvantaged regions, families dependent on agricultural labour often migrate to urban centres or neighbouring states after the monsoon in search of temporary work. While migration may provide short-term income, it also carries social costs, including disrupted education, poor living conditions and reduced access to healthcare and social security.
Behind every statistic, therefore, lies not only an individual tragedy but also the gradual erosion of a family’s economic stability and future opportunities.
A Changing Crisis Requires a Different Policy Response
The latest NCRB figures suggest that India’s agrarian crisis can no longer be understood solely through the experiences of land-owning farmers. The growing proportion of suicides among agricultural labourers points to a deeper structural transformation within the rural economy—one that deserves greater policy attention.
Addressing this challenge requires recognising agricultural labourers as a distinct and vulnerable group within the broader framework of rural development. Their livelihoods depend largely on seasonal employment rather than land ownership, which means many existing support mechanisms designed for cultivators do not adequately reach them.
Expanding employment opportunities through programmes such as MGNREGA, increasing the number of guaranteed workdays where appropriate, ensuring timely wage payments and strengthening rural social security could help reduce some of the economic pressures faced by landless households.
At the same time, support for cultivators also requires sustained attention.
Improving the effectiveness of minimum support price (MSP) procurement, making crop insurance more transparent and accessible, expanding irrigation, encouraging climate-resilient farming practices and strengthening access to institutional credit remain important components of any long-term strategy to reduce agrarian distress.
Mental health support must also become part of the policy conversation.
Financial stress, repeated crop failures, indebtedness and prolonged uncertainty often combine to create severe psychological pressures. Strengthening rural counselling services, community-based mental health programmes and early intervention mechanisms can complement economic measures rather than replace them.
Equally important is the need to improve the quality of official data.
More consistent reporting practices, better recognition of women engaged in agriculture, stronger coordination among administrative agencies and continued research into the changing nature of rural livelihoods would enable policymakers to design more targeted and effective interventions.
Beyond the Statistics
Statistics help measure the scale of a crisis, but they cannot fully convey its human consequences.
Every farming-related suicide leaves behind grieving parents, spouses, children and communities whose lives are permanently altered. Behind every number is an unfinished harvest, an unpaid loan, an interrupted education, a family forced to rebuild its future under extraordinarily difficult circumstances.
The latest NCRB report does not simply record another year’s figures. It also signals an important shift in the nature of agrarian distress. The increasing vulnerability of agricultural labourers suggests that the crisis is becoming broader, more complex and more deeply linked to structural changes in rural employment and livelihoods.
Recognising this transition is the first step.
Responding to it will require policies that go beyond emergency relief and address the underlying economic, social and environmental factors that continue to shape rural life. Strengthening livelihood security, improving climate resilience, expanding social protection and ensuring that the most vulnerable sections of the agricultural workforce are not left outside the policy framework will be essential if meaningful progress is to be achieved.
The loss of nearly one farming-related life every hour is not merely a statistic. It is a reminder that behind every number stands a human story—one that calls not only for empathy, but for sustained, evidence-based public policy.
If the changing character of India’s agrarian crisis is acknowledged today, future statistics may begin to tell a different story. If it is ignored, the numbers may fluctuate from year to year, but the underlying tragedy is likely to persist.
