India's suicide rates highest in areas with most debt-ridden farmers: Study

A new study has revealed that there are strong causal links between areas with the most suicides and areas where impoverished farmers are trying to grow crops.

According to the study, the farmers suffer from wild price fluctuations due to India's relatively recent shift to free market economics.

The researchers found that the shocking rates of suicide are highest in areas with the most debt-ridden farmers who are clinging to tiny smallholdings and are trying to grow 'cash crops', such as cotton and coffee, that are highly susceptible to global price fluctuations.

The study by researchers from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) found that the policy intervention to stabilize the price of cash crops and relieve indebted farmers may help stem the tide of suicide that has swept the Indian countryside.

The researchers did not believe they had enough evidence to show suicide rates are higher in farmers and said that the results of their statistical analysis support many case studies and reports from the field and suggest there is a suicide epidemic in marginalised areas of Indian agriculture that are at the mercy of global economics.

Jonathan Kennedy, the lead author of the study, said that suicide rates tend to be higher in states with greater economic disparity.

The study was published online in the journal Globalisation and Health.