Regional Science Policy & Practice xxx (xxxx) xxx

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Regional Science Policy & Practice

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Socio-ecological shocks, weak community support systems, and tragic

responses of farmers – A modeling study on India
Abdul Shabana,
⁎,1
, Karima Kourtitb,c,2, Peter Nijkampb,c,3, Bipin Dasd
a
School of Development Studies, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Deonar, Mumbai, India
b
Open University, Heerlen, The Netherlands
c
Alexander Ioan Cuza University, Iasi, Romania
d
School of Rural Development, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Tuljapur Campus, India

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

Keywords: The agricultural economy of India is undergoing significant distress – low growth and farmers’ indebtedness -
Agriculture leading to 0.35 million farmers’ suicides during the period 1996–2021. India has a varied agro-ecosystem. The
Farmers distress is acute in some regions, like Maharashtra (Marathwada, Vidarbha regions), Punjab, and Karnataka. This
Socio-ecological systems study explores the intricate relationship between contextual (social-economic and environmental) conditions of
Vulnerability
entrepreneurial uncertainty and agricultural disruptions, malfunctioning institutions for regional socio-ecolo­
Tipping point
gical systems, and subsequent tragic re-actions (including suicidal behaviour) by farmers. We discuss not only
Suicidal behaviour
facts but also provide a research framing incorporating theory, practice and spatial governance. The research
focuses on the socio-spatial fabric of poor agricultural entrepreneurs in India. The case study of Osmanabad
district of Deccan region of India reveals that the consequences of poor institutional response mechanisms to
perturbations of agriculture are far-reaching, leading to physical and emotional tolls on farmers and their fa­
milies, food scarcity, economic instability, and a deep sense of insecurity. The study brings out agricultural
vulnerabilities and tragic responses by farmers, shedding light on the underlying causes and dynamics of this
complex phenomenon (including low community support systems). A tipping point analysis on farmers’ in­
debtedness is presented, which can help policy makers to prevent farmer communities from reaching the ex­
treme stage of economic and mental distress leading to suicidal behaviour, and to ensure the well-being and
stability of the community. The paper argues that understanding and addressing these challenges require col­
laborative action and partnerships among different stakeholders, especially among communities, states, and
universities.

1. Introduction consequences of dreadful response mechanisms in agriculture are far-

In the world of agriculture, environment and market-led disasters
have become constant threats hanging over the livelihoods of farmers.
These hardworking individuals, with their unwavering commitment
and strong connection to land, often find themselves vulnerable to
unpredictable forces of nature and the market. However, it is not just
slow or fast unfolding policy, practice and physical environmental
disasters themselves that present the biggest challenge, but also the
tragic responses, like suicide of farmers, seen in their aftermath. The
reaching and reverberate throughout farming communities (Hansen
et al. 2017). The physical and emotional toll on farmers and their fa­
milies is immense, as their dreams are shattered, and their resilience is
tested beyond measure. Communities are left grappling with food
scarcity, economic instability, and a deep sense of insecurity (Shiferaw
et al. 2014). This may have far-reaching impacts on farmers, with sui­
cide being the ultimate tragic outcome (Verma and Singh, 2019).
India has about 65% of the population living in rural areas and
45.6% (233.2 million) of the total workers are directly engaged in the

⁎
Corresponding author.
E-mail address: shaban@tiss.edu (A. Shaban).
1
ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2008-9394
2
ORCID iD: 0000-0002-7171-994X
3
ORCID iD: 0000-0002-4068-8132

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rspp.2024.100030

Available online xxxx

1757-7802/© 2024 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of The Regional Science Association International. This is an open access article under the CC
BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).

Please cite this article as: A. Shaban, K. Kourtit, P. Nijkamp et al., Socio-ecological shocks, weak community support systems, and tragic responses
of farmers – A modeling study on India, Regional Science Policy & Practice, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rspp.2024.100030i
A. Shaban, K. Kourtit, P. Nijkamp et al.
agricultural sector (Chand and Singh, 2022). Although the country has
experienced rapid economic growth, the growth has been uneven sec­
torally, regionally as well as socially (Sanga and Shaban, 2017). Tra­
ditional farming methods, declining rainfall or its changing pattern, and
market-led vagaries have introduced socio-economic vulnerabilities
among Indian farmers leading to suicides, more so in certain regions of
the country and especially in the Deccan plateau area.
On an average, 14,420 farmers in India are killing themselves every
year. Several contributing factors of farmers’ suicidal behaviour have
been identified by studies. Some of these factors are regular and peri­
odic monsoon (rainfall) failures, depletion of groundwater, high debt
burdens, lack of adoption or effective management of genetically
modified crops, inappropriate government policies related to agri­
culture, high cost of credit and credit linkages, inadequate rural and
semi-urban infrastructure development, lack of rural agricultural mar­
kets, and mental health, personal, and family problems, etc.
Despite massive distress on the farmers due to failing socio-ecolo­
gical systems, there have not been any detailed and systematic studies
using large data, as presented in the next section of the paper, ex­
amining the factors that play important roles in enhancing the risk of
suicide of the farmers. Most of the studies have largely examined a few
cases of suicides or have taken a few variables to explain the incidence
of the suicides. The present study, therefore, to fill this gap, system­
atically investigates the complex interplay between external and con­
textual conditions of agriculture in India, the multi-faceted mechanism
of socio-ecological systems at the regional scale, and the ultimate tragic
reaction of farmers who take their lives. While economic factors and
limited social networks contribute significantly to these challenges, it is
important to note that climate change and unsustainable resource ex­
ploitation further increase the vulnerability of agricultural livelihoods
in rural or peripheral regions of India (Patil, 2018; Rawat and Mishra,
2018; Dhillon and Bhullar, 2019; Scoones, 2020; Bandyopadhyay et al.
2021). To ensure sustainable agriculture in these areas, it is imperative
to comprehend the underlying causes and dynamics of this intricate
issue and formulate effective strategies for prevention and intervention
(Resurrección et al. 2018; Shaban and Narnaware, 2019).
The paper is based on a detailed survey of sampled farming families
with episodes of suicide and those families with no such episode but
located in the same villages or hamlets during October 2016 – August
2017. Such pooling of the data enables us to examine the conditions
which led to the extreme behaviours by farmers in one family not in the
other. As such, the present paper attempts to address the following
questions. Whether changes in physical environment have adverse
impacts on farmers’ livelihoods to such an extent that these factors lead
to high psychological stress and therefore increase the risk of farmers’
suicide? What are the critical limits or tipping points in the farmers’
behaviour related to the stress-generating factors? Which other con­
textual factors play a role in the tragic decisions of farmers to take their
lives, such as low social support or network constellations, indebted­
ness, unsatisfactory mental health care, malfunctioning governance
system, etc?
The rest of the paper is organised as follows. Section 2 reviews
theories of suicidal behaviour of individuals and existing studies on
farmers’ suicide in India, while Section 3 discusses material and
methods. Section 4 examines growth in farmers’ suicide and environ­
mental factors both at all-India level and in Osmanabad district. This
section also highlights the major specificities of the families with epi­
sodes of suicide in Osmanabad. The factors that differ between the fa­
milies with episode and non-episode of suicides through logistic re­
gression and structural equation modelling (SEM) are examined in
Section 5, and tipping points of some of the factors are identified.
Section 6 presents a discussion of findings, while Section 7 discusses the
policy implications. The last section presents conclusion of the study.
The contribution of this study is as follows. It attempts to examine
the environmental factors contributing to the extreme behaviours of the
persons engaged in agriculture and their social and economic
2
Regional Science Policy & Practice xxx (xxxx) xxx
situations, health, and psychological conditions. The extensive frame­
work of situating the tragic actions by farmers in a socio-ecological
contexts helps us also to bring to the fore the failing of the systems and
their consequences on the economic situation of farmers, food safety,
health and wellbeing, and adverse consequences of unsustainable
agricultural practices on surface and groundwater resources, and soil.
As such, the paper points out that in rural areas of several regions of
India, failing socio-ecological system may compromise the achievement
of India about SDG-1(No Poverty), SDG-2 (Zero Hunger), SDG-2 (Good
Health and Wellbeing), SDG-6 (Clean Water and Sanitation), SDG-8
(Decent Work and Economic Growth) SDG-10 (Reduced Inequality),
and SDG-13 (Climate Action). The paper also contributes to the existing
literature on tipping points by estimating the contribution of various
variables that increase the risk of farmers’ suicide.
Policy-wise, the paper argues that breaking down the barriers per­
petuating dreadful responses requires stakeholders' collaborative ac­
tions. It necessitates partnerships between governments, non-govern­
mental organisations, research institutions, and communities. By
fostering dialogue, sharing best practices, and nurturing innovation, we
can forge a future where farmers are not left to face calamities alone but
are supported by a web of interconnected stakeholders committed to
their well-being. However, the absence of such support systems may
lead to deep human tragedies.
2. Major theories of suicidal behaviour and studies on farmers’
suicide in India
2.1. Conceptual framing
Several theories of suicide have been put forward over the years.
However, none of these theories completely explain the occurrence of
suicides in all possible contexts. For a long time, it has been a widely
held conception that genetic or biological factors are responsible for
individuals committing suicide (Selby et al. 2014), while Durkheim
(1897) argued that either low (loneliness/egoistic type) or high social
regulation (altruistic type) or either low (anomic type) or high moral
integration (fatalistic) are responsible for suicide. Many studies have
used divorce rates, low participation in religious activities, and out­
migration as indicators of anomy to test the power of Durkheimian
theory. the ‘Hopelessness’ theory argues that individuals commit sui­
cide when they are overwhelmed by the feeling that there are no pos­
sibilities to improve their life situation (Beck et al. 1985; 1990). The
hopelessness creates certain behavioural responses like alcoholism or
drug abuse, and these are factors often employed in testing the theory.
Shneidman (1996) argues that psychache (intense psychological pain),
which results from a deficit in meeting different needs in individuals, is
responsible for suicide, while Baumeister (1990) argues that suicides
are the result of individuals’ actions to escape from aversive self-aware­
ness, through suicides individual attempts to stop the painful thoughts
and feelings. Similarly, Linehan (1993) argues that ‘emotion dysregu­
lation’, which results from critical and invalidating environments,
causes suicide. Joiner (2005) in his ‘interpersonal psychological’ theory’
argues that the interaction between the feeling of lack of belongingness
to the family and society and lack of fear of death, leads to suicide.
Stack (1996) is of the view that suicides are like ‘epidemiology’ and are
transmitted through media. However, the ‘infection agents’ or ‘toxic
product’ causing it are not clear (Porta, 2008) from the theory.
In recent years, the notion of a ‘tipping point’, which has its base in
system theory, is increasingly used to explain suicides. Gladwell (2000)
argues that there is a base rate of a behaviour determined by several
factors, but there is a threshold (tipping point) which when breached
(tipping point) results in a dramatic increase in that behaviour. This is
applied in the study of suicide as a consequence of tipping points (Tittle
and Rowe, 1973; Goldney, 1998). The theory argues that a person will
commit suicide when his total discounted lifetime utility (which in­
cludes a taste for living) becomes zero. In other words, the average
A. Shaban, K. Kourtit, P. Nijkamp et al.
suicide rate will relate to the utility functions determined by permanent
income and age (Yang, 1992). Where permanent income is considered
as the average expected income during the lifetime (taking into con­
sideration his/her current age and taste of life) of the individual, and
this becomes an opportunity cost if a person commits suicide. The in­
debtedness (which results from lack of wealth, unemployment, lack of
social support or systemic deprivation) as such become good indicators
to test the tipping point.
Tipping points have been used in the investigation of several critical
bifurcation factors, and each of these factors individually and collec­
tively seems to lead to the situation of a tipping point. For instance,
Stolz et al. (2021) using within-person frailty index (FI) found that
when FI reaches a tipping point, the person dies and the FI increased
more rapidly in males than in females. Kim et al. (2019) found that in
Korea among young and midlife decade group workers the risk of sui­
cidal ideation were associated with job insecurity and discomfort in
organizational environment.
Social tipping point concept (which is qualitatively different from
the personal tipping point used in individual suicide studies) has been
used by Moser and Dilling (2007) to frame the discussion on the link
between climate communication and social change. This term ‘tipping
point’ has been used to depict the non-linear state change process in
several disciplines surpassing the use of similar terms used earlier like
‘regime shifts’ and ‘critical transitions’ (van Nes et al. 2016). However,
there has been a tendency to overuse the term social tipping point
without due consideration of scale, and boundaries, insufficient en­
gagement with social theories (Yletyinen et al. 2019; Milkoreit, 2022).
Some studies have also cautioned against importing the analogy of
tipping point from the physical system to the social system (Bentley
et al. 2014). On the methodology front, a number of studies have at­
tempted to use sophisticated modelings, such as historical case method,
agent-based models (Müller et al. 2021), and controlled experiments
(Andreoni et al. 2021), survey data to more closely fit the models
(Wiedermann et al. 2020; Milkoreit, 2022). However, there is largely an
absence of replication to the same in the social tipping point analysis.
Drawing from the tipping point theory, we postulate that before any
incident happens, whether natural or social system, there is an ap­
pearance of symptoms. The intensity and spread of symptoms often
increase till reach a tipping point where the system or individual, as in
cases of any disease, collapses. The tipping point theory points out that
the same may apply to suicide, here in the case of farmers. The impacts
of factors emerging from the specificity of individual (person specifi­
city), family (family specificity), socio-economic and political system
Fig. 1. Different stages in development of suicidal conditions and tipping point. Source: Authors.
3
Regional Science Policy & Practice xxx (xxxx) xxx
(social system), and physical environmental system may together or
individually impact with such intensity that one may commit suicide.
We can classify the progression of symptoms, as given in Fig. 1, based
on emerging intensity of impacts on individuals in the case of farmers'
suicide in four stages (Han et al. 2022).
2.2. Earlier studies in India and their findings
In India, many studies have tried to capture the reasons for farmers’
suicide. Among the reasons attributed, the stress factor due to failing or
altered socio-ecological system has been the prime. In a study of suicide
of farmers in Punjab State of India, Sidhu (2002) argues that the land
and water ecology in Punjab has got deteriorated over the years. Con­
sequently, the input cost of farmers is increasing while the profit is
decreasing, leading o massive stress and indebtedness among the
farmers. Mohanty (2013) argues that agrarian changes in India have
considerably compromised the economic situation of farmers. Rising
indebtedness, input cost, declining economic returns with the liberal­
ization of the traditional farming economy, etc, are identified as major
causes of the agrarian distress. Sidhu et al. (2011) from analysis of data
of victims of suicide of two districts of Punjab, find that indebtedness
was the main reason for suicide in 75% of the cases in Sangrur district
and 71% of the cases in Bathinda district. Further, indebtedness-income
ratio of such indebted farmers was 7.75 in Bhatinda and 4.57 in San­
grur. Interestingly, the average family size of those indebted was lower
(4.03 persons), indicating nuclear families, than those not indebted
(4.44), indicating extended or larger family size. Another study by
Singh et al. (2017) finds that 83.33% of the marginal farmers, 88.64%
of small farmers, 89.06% of the semi-medium farmers, 84.09% of the
medium farmers, and 82.61% of the large farmers, 85.90 of all farmers,
and 80.07% of the agricultural labourers are indebted in Punjab, and
the average debt on the farmers family is about INR 0.552 million.
Mohanty and Lenka (2019) find that in the case of small farmers’ in
Odisha State of India, suicides are caused by declining farm income,
exploitative land lease arrangements, lack of access to the regulated
market, failure of crops, increased cost of inputs, and indebtedness.
The state of Maharashtra accounts for the largest number of farmers’
suicide in India. Within Maharashtra, Marathwada and Vidarbha are
the two regions mainly affected by farmers’ suicide. Talvule (2020)
finds that in these two regions, suicides are caused by distress created
by monsoon failure, absence of social security, lack of robust crop
procurement mechanisms, and increasing debt burdens (p.116). A re­
port by Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) (2005) submitted to the
A. Shaban, K. Kourtit, P. Nijkamp et al.
High Court of Maharashtra State highlighted the following as the main
causes of suicide among farmers in the state: (a) heavy indebtedness of
farmers, (b) reduction in productivity, (c) rising input cost, (d) by­
passing of small and marginal farmers from major benefits of govern­
ment schemes for seeds, pesticides, irrigation, etc, and (e) lack of safety
net for farmers. Ghunnar and Hakhu (2018) in their study on the
aftermath of suicide in farmers’ families find that the major burden falls
on the widow who must change her role from housewife to bread­
winner and face the challenges of gender discrimination in all walks of
life; older children’s education often gets disrupted and their struggle
shifts to day-to-day survival, while younger children undergo mal­
nutrition because of decline in the household income as a result of
sudden shock. In sum, in India, a large set of factors have been iden­
tified as the causes of farmers’ suicide. However, prominent among
them remains the environmental causes and indebtedness of farmers.
The studies (Talvule, 2020; Mohanty, 2013; Sidhu et al., 2011;
Singh et al. 2017; Mohanty and Lenka, 2019) till now have focussed
mainly on impacts of specific variables on the distress of the farmers
and farmers’ suicide, while the studies like those by TISS (2005) use
socio-ecological approach but are based on ethnography. The present
study attempts to fill the existing gap by using the socio-ecological
approach, logistic regression, and structural equation modelling.
3. Methodology
The present study uses data from two sources, namely (a) the
National Crime Record Bureau’s (NCRB) ‘Accidental Deaths & Suicides
in India’, published annually, which provides bare statistics of suicide in
India by profession and other parameters but lacks depth in terms of
details of the causes, and (b) from a sample survey of farmers’ families
facing suicidal episodes during 2011–2017 in Osmanabad district of
Maharashtra. Out of the total 597 suicide cases details provided by the
District Administration of Osmanabad, we could reach 382 family
during October 2016 –August 2017, and acquired their details at the
time of incidence of the suicide mainly from the widows of the farmers
or head of the family in case of non-availability of the widow. Thus, the
sample covers about 64% of the total number of farmers’ suicides that
took place in the district during the period. Further, we also collected
data from 2835 families with non-suicide episodes by selecting them
randomly from the same socio-ecological system, that is villages and
hamlets. The sample from the same villages and hamlets ranged from 5
to 10 families depending on the size of the villages/hamlets. We col­
lected the data on similar parameters from the two sets of families. We
have compared the alcoholism and mental health of persons commit­
ting suicides with the heads of families with no-suicide episodes. This
enabled us to compare the parametres of families and individuals with
and without the event of suicides.
To understand the impact probabilities of various factors on families
with suicide and non-suicide, we have employed in our study logistic re­
gression and SEM. As occurrence of suicide can take binary 0 (no suicide) or
1 (yes), the logistic regression is the most suitable method to estimate the
probability, which lies between 0 and 1 as it fits an s-shaped logistic
function or sigmoid function, of occurrence of suicide based on the variables
that may impact the probability. We have plotted the estimated sigmoid
functions to visualize the impact of different variables on the probability of
suicides. In fact, the logistic regression function helps best estimate the
tipping point. When the probability reaches near 1, the certainty of the
incidence or high risk of suicide increases.
A number of variables can impact the incidence of suicide among
the farmers. We have used variables that depict the personal situation
of the farmers committing suicides, their family situations, social si­
tuations, economic situations, access to information (through ICT),
membership of collectives, effectiveness of governance, and environ­
mental conditions. In the category of personal situation, the variables,
alcoholism and psychological disorder (mental health) are expected to
impact positively the incidence of suicide. In the family situation, the
4
Regional Science Policy & Practice xxx (xxxx) xxx
nuclear families may positively affect suicide as they lose the financial
and emotional support systems that joint and extended families often
provide. If a member of the family has migrated, this shows a distress
situation in the family and is expected to have a positive correlation
with suicide. It can also be argued that remittances from the migrant
may have an ameliorative impact on the family, but we take it here as a
sign of economic distress of the family. Pending marriage of family
members may assert psychological pressure as it involves a significant
amount of spending. Similarly, the more one is dependent on farming
income, the more possibility that the person will be impacted by losses
if crops fail, impacting positively the incidence of suicide. The total
annual income of families and agricultural land owned are expected to
have negative relationship with suicide as economically well-off fa­
milies are expected to have less incidence of suicide. The membership
of collectives, access to more information through ICT, and a better
support system from the government (governance) will negatively im­
pact the probability of incidence of suicide, but pending loans, lack of
irrigation, crop failures, and borewell failures may positively impact the
incidence of suicide. We have mentioned the expected relationship
between the probability of suicide and the variables determining it are
presented in Table 3.
The logistic regression model used is as follows.
Pi
Li = Ln = 1 + 1 Xi1 + 2 Xi2 + ...+ n XiN + ui
1 Pi (1)
Where, Li is the logit or log of the odds-ratio, Ln [Pi/(1-Pi)], α intercept,
βs are the respective coefficients for independent variables X (given in
Table 3) from 1 to N of ith family.
Based on Eq. (1), we have estimated the probability of suicide,
tipping point, on the key factors or Xs, and especially on total in­
debtedness. Using the variables, we have also computed scores for
various factors using principal component analysis on eight major as­
pects (Fig. 5), and then using SEM we have attempted to understand the
impact paths which leads to suicides of farmers.
4. Facts from India
4.1. Regional data
In India, total 0.357 million persons engaged in farming committed
suicides during 1996–2021, which constituted 11.7% of the total 3.216
million suicides in the country during that period. The number of sui­
cides by persons engaged in farming peaked in 2002–2009, and
thereafter it shows declining trend (Fig. 2), and so has been the share of
females and share of the total suicides by the persons engaged in this
sector to the all India-total number of suicides. The share of females
committing suicides has been less than one-fifth of the total suicides in
the farming sector, except in 1996 when it was around 20.6%, and has
declined considerably to reach 6.75% in 2021. Although the share of
women engaged in the agricultural sector (women constituted 30.58%
as cultivators, and 43.11% of total agricultural labourers in India in
2011, Census of India (2011)) is lower than males, showing women as
more resilient than men in terms bearing the distress.
Farmers’ suicide rate has been higher in the Deccan part of India
which is covered largely with black soil and is lying in the rainshadow
area. Three years average suicide rates of 1996–98, and 2019–21 show
that high suicide rate states are Maharashtra, Telangana, Karnataka,
Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Kerala. These states were in top
three quartiles in both the periods (Fig. 3a). Annual rainfall variability
(coefficient of variations) in meteorological subdivisions of some of
these states have also been higher during 1991–08, and specially in
Marathwada subdivision in which Osmanabad district is located
(Fig. 3b). Most of these regions depend on rainfed farming and or ir­
rigation based on groundwater. The variability in rainfall leads to crop
failure and overuse of the surface and groundwater as in Osmanabad,
A. Shaban, K. Kourtit, P. Nijkamp et al. Regional Science Policy & Practice xxx (xxxx) xxx

20000 25.0

Number of total persons committing suicide engaged in

% of females and persons commi�ng suicide engaged in

18000

16000 20.0

14000

12000 15.0
farming sector

farming sector
10000

8000 10.0

6000

4000 5.0

2000

0 0.0

2009
1996
1997
1998
1999
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008

2010
2011
2012
2013
2014
2015
2016
2017
2018
2019
2020
2021
Year

Number of suicides by persons engaged in farming sector

% of females to the total persons engagded in farming commi�ng suicide
% of persons commi�ng suicide engaged in farming sector to the total suicides

Fig. 2. Total persons committing suicide engaged in the farming sector, their percentage of the total suicide cases, and the percentage of females. Source: Based on
data from NCRB (various years).

Fig. 3. Farmers’ suicide rate (incidence per 100 000 rural population) and annual rainfall variability in meteorological divisions. Note: 1. For figure (a) for 1996–98,
the three class intervals of suicide rates are < 0.155(minimum 0.000), 0.155 – 1.315, and > 1.315 (maximum 6.013), while for 2019–2021, the class intervals for the
suicide rates are < 0.512 (minimum 0.000), 0.512 – 2.878, and > 2.878 (maximum 6.135). Source: Fig. 2(a) based on data from NCRB (various years) and Fig. 2(b)
on data from (IITM, 2009).

where water-intensive sugarcane cultivation has led to heavy depletion drillers do not find water, they only get indebtedness and despairs. Our
of aquifers. Farmers often acquire loan for borewells, and when after study reveals, several farmers in such cases have committed suicide in
digging several hundred feet through basalt rocks down using hired Osmanabad.

5
A. Shaban, K. Kourtit, P. Nijkamp et al.
4.2. Facts from Osmanabad
During 2011–2017, toal 597 farmers committed suicides in
Osmanabad. The district that largely depends on agriculture: 38.4% of
the workers are engaged in cultivation while 38.7% are agricultural
labourers as per Census of India (2011). The district has depleting
ground and surface water resources, high concentration of nitrate in
groundwater, and increasing variability in the rainfall (coefficient of
variation 33.70 during 1980–2014). The highest number of suicides in
the district was reported in 2015, that is 164 suicides. The annual
rainfall in that year experienced a massive deficit, only 477 mm as
compared to about 700 mm annual normal rainfall (Shaban and Das,
2018).
A majority of the farmers committing suicides during the period in
the district were not economically sound. Total 63.5% suicide affected
families had an annual income of less than INR 50,000 (about US
$794). Further, the marginal (< 1 acre of agricultural land) and small
farmers (1–5 acres of agricultural land) together accounted for 71.11%
of the total suicides in the district. This shows that among the poorer
and less resourceful farming families the alternatives mean of liveli­
hoods are difficult or unavailable. The lower share of the total suicides
of 8.5% in relatively higher income groups (above INR 100, 000, which
is about US $ 1587 per annum) indicates that they are less susceptible
to suicide as they are relatively better off, and may have better access to
irrigation (as borewell is cost intensive), skills, networks, wealth/sav­
ings, and so on.
It is interesting to note that caste also plays a role in suicide.
Marathas are middle caste group in India and are associated with socio-
political power in the region. Marathas constitute about 30% of the
state population. In the absence of any official data, we assume that the
same is the share of their population in Osmanabad. However, 65.8% of
those committed suicides in the district during 2011–17 belonged to
Maratha caste, followed by Dhangar (10.4%), whose share matches
with their share in the state population, that is about 13%. Field ana­
lysis reveals that Marathas associate decline in economic status with
decline in social status and as such are more prone to suicide.
Another sociologically interesting finding is the higher share of the
total suicide (71.1%) being accounted for by nuclear families. This
shows that the division of traditional joint and extended families into
nuclear families has undermined the community fabric and kinship
support. The joint family, which was regarded as a support system for
farmers in times of distress, is lost in contemporary times. Age-wise,
there is hardly any pattern among persons committing suicide. About
19% of those committing suicide belonged to 60+ years age-group and
those below 18 years constituted 1.1% of the total suicides. Of the total,
95.3% of those committing suicides were male, and about 22.2% were
illiterate, and only about 7.5% were those with higher education de­
grees (undergraduate and above), which largely corresponds to the
educational profile of the district. Occupation-wise, 91.8% were
working in their own fields, 2.4% were engaged only as agricultural
Table 1
Sources of loan for the five important purposes by suicide-affected families (%), in Osmanabad.
Sources Crop Marriage
Nationalised Banks 32.02 3.92
Co-operative Banks 18.23 15.69
Credit societies 24.14 1.96)
Moneylenders 4.43 7.84
Relatives 5.91 50.98
Microfinance 0.00 1.96
SHGs 1.48 7.94
Others 0.49 1.97
Multiple sources 12.81 7.84
Don’t know 0.49 0.00
Total 100.00 (203) 100.00 (51)
Note: Figures in parentheses are number of families with loan in respective categories with possibility of multiple loans.
6
Regional Science Policy & Practice xxx (xxxx) xxx
labour, while the rest were self-employmed and practised farming of
their own land as subsidiary occupation.
Around 87.6% of the farmers who committed suicides were found to
be healthy, with no prior health problems. Family members of the
victims mentioned some vivid type of illnesses to 5.6% of the farmers.
Only 1.1% of suicides were reported with confirmed medical cases of
mental illness. Suicide is determined by the socio-economic condition
of the person committing it, but some claim that it is a completely
psychological phenomenon (Mohanty, 2005).
A majority (70.2%) of the victims adopted hanging as a method of
suicide, 20.2% of victims consumed poisons, 4.9% burned themselves,
and 3.6% drowned themselves. Several causes for the suicides have
been mentioned by families of victims. These causes are not exclusive;
in most of the suicides, several causes were involved. Indebtedness was
a cause mentioned by 75.8% of the families, while crop failure by
59.1% of the cases. About 43.6% of the families attributed to drought.
In India, moneylenders in popular literature have been considered
exploitative and creating generational indebtedness among the mar­
ginalized sections because of the higher interest rates they charge on
loans. With the development of formal (institutional) sources of credit,
like banks, corporative, non-banking financial companies, Self-help
Groups (SHGs), and micro-finance institutions, etc, the share of the
population obtaining loans from non-institutional sources, which in­
cludes moneylenders, has declined over the years. The percentage of
cultivators availing institutional sources of credit in India has risen
from 18.4% in 1961 to 74.5% in 2016, while the percentage of culti­
vators obtaining loans from agricultural moneylenders has declined
48.1% to 10.8% during the same period (Kumar, 2021). Institutional
sources of credit is the main source of indebtedness among the farmers
in Osmanabad (Table 1). This also shows that formal financial institu­
tions under the neoliberal regime since 1992 in India have turned into
new moneylenders, while in 1969 and 1980 banks were nationalized to
create social banking regime in which well-being of the people rather
than that of financial institutions was a major aim (Shaban, 2010). It is
also instructive that about 89.3% of the families with episodes of sui­
cide had pending loans from all sources below INR 300,000, which is
about US $4672.
5. Causal and tipping point analysis of farmer’s suicide: results
5.1. Logistic regression results
Our study seeks to understand the impact of different factors on
episodes of suicide in farmers’ families using total 3217 family data
(which includes 382 farming families with suicide episodes and the rest
with non-suicide episode). The summary statistics of the variables are
presented in Table 2, which shows that on an average income of fa­
milies from agriculture constituted 65% of their total family income,
and the average annual income of the families was INR 73,843 (about
US $ 1172), while average debt on the families was INR 122667 (about
Medical Contingencies Borewell Farm Equipment
2.86 28.57 27.27
0.00 7.14 13.64
5.71 3.57 22.73
22.86 17.86 9.09
48.57 39.29 13.64
2.86 0.00 0.00
2.86 0.00 4.55
5.71 0.00 9.09
5.71 3.57 0.00
2.86 0.00 0.00
100.00 (35) 100.00 (28) 100.00 (22)
A. Shaban, K. Kourtit, P. Nijkamp et al. Regional Science Policy & Practice xxx (xxxx) xxx

Table 2
Summary statistics of variables.

Variables Mean Std. Dev. Min Max

If was alcoholic (yes=1) 0.11 0.31 0.00 1.00

If suffering from any psychological disorder (yes=1) 0.68 0.47 0.00 1.00
Type of family (nuclear =1) 0.67 0.47 0.00 1.00
If any member migrated for earning (yes=1) 0.19 0.39 0.00 1.00
Education expenses of family members (yes=1) 0.34 0.47 0.00 1.00
Pending marriage of family members(yes=1) 0.21 0.41 0.00 1.00
% of income from farming 65.11 31.63 0.00 100.00
Annual income of the family (Rs.) 73843.33 74655.18 0.00 1300000.00
Total owned land by family (acres) 5.76 5.45 0.00 50.00
If the household suffered any major economic losses in the last 3 years (yes=1) 0.96 0.19 0.00 1.00
If the family had a loan from moneylenders 0.06 0.24 0.00 1.00
The total amount of loan at the time of suicide on the family (Rs.) 122666.80 334396.00 0.00 12400000.00
If the family has a radio (yes=1) 0.05 0.22 0.00 1.00
If the family has TV (yes=1) 0.51 0.50 0.00 1.00
If the family has a computer (yes=1) 0.01 0.10 0.00 1.00
If the family has internet access (yes=1) 0.01 0.08 0.00 1.00
If the family has a landline phone (yes=1) 0.01 0.11 0.00 1.00
If the family has a mobile phone (yes=1) 0.90 0.31 0.00 1.00
If a member of the farmers' group (yes=1) 0.12 0.33 0.00 1.00
If a member of SHG (yes=1) 0.28 0.45 0.00 1.00
If received any compensation from government (yes=1) 0.86 0.34 0.00 1.00
If received any compensation from insurance (yes=1) 0.73 0.45 0.00 1.00
Non-availability of irrigation(yes=1) 0.13 0.33 0.00 1.00
Loss of crop due to drought or rain(yes=1) 0.90 0.30 0.00 1.00
Borewell failure(yes=1) 0.18 0.38 0.00 1.00

Note: N=3217; No. of households with suicide episodes = 382.

US $1947), that is 1.66 times of the annual income. This shows that the
agricultural economy of the district itself has entered a debt trap.
We have presented the results of the logistic regression in Table 3,
which shows that our model is statistically significant as Pseudo R2 is
higher, and Likelihood Ratio (LR) Chi2 test, Pearson goodness-of-fit test,
and Hosmer-Lemeshow Chi2 test are statistically significant. We have
also performed reliability tests of our logistic model using the receiver
operating characteristic curve (ROC) and calibration belt test. It is ar­
gued by Nattino et al. (2017) that these two tests are fundamental in
nature for the reliability of logistic models. ROC tests the model’s ability
to “distinguish between subjects within two outcome levels” (Nattino
et al. 2017, p.1004) through area under the curve (AUC). AUC ranges
between 0 and 1. If a model’s prediction is 100% wrong, it will have an
AUC of 0.0, while models giving 100% correct prediction will have AUC
of 1.0. Our computed AUC is higher 0.785 (78.5%) showing a good
reliability of the model (Fig. 4a).
The calibration belt test is done through the graph of confidence for
the prediction (Fig. 4b). If the model made a perfect prediction, it
would follow the diagonal line and will be narrowly along the same.
The wider the confidence belt and the more it deviates from the diag­
onal line, the lesser the reliability of the prediction. The calibration belt
test of our model shows that our predictions/estimates are fairly ac­
curate (though at the upper end, the belt is wider but not much). The
Wald test is 4.32 and the p-value 0.912. These statistics suggest that the
hypothesis of good calibration is not rejected (at 0.05 level) (Nattino
et al. 2017).
The logistic regression results show that individual-related factors
like alcoholism and psychological disorder are not related to suicides.
The family and society-related variables are found significant indicating
that education and marriage (families spend a significant amount of
money because of the social customs including dowry) of family
members weigh heavily on the minds of the farmers. The results show
that the odds of farmers’ suicide increase to 1.6 each when the farmers
are in distress due to expenditures for marriage and education of family
members compared to those not having such distress. The migration of
family members is also not able to help as the odds of suicide in such
families are higher (1.4). It is also possible that migration because of the
nuclear family is taken as the last resort. Also, the nuclear family is not
able to provide the socio-economic and emotional supports, and as such
odds of suicide also increase in nuclear families (1.3) as compared to
joint or extended families. This importantly brings to the fore that
breaking up of families into nuclear and smaller families may not be
very helpful to traditional societies in the global south.
It is interesting to find that size of land owned and indebtedness to
moneylenders do not effectively contribute to the farmers’ suicide. The
odds of the families with the likelihood of suicide are lower in families
with a relatively higher share of income from agriculture, and also
those who have suffered major losses (assessed subjectively by the fa­
mily). The odds of suicide and non-suicide are equal in the case of the
size of land ownership, the annual income of the family, and the total
amount of loan outstanding. This shows that land, income, and in­
debtedness may be impacting through social, familial, and other vari­
ables.
We expected that those families more exposed to information and
communication technologies (ICT) may be more aware and adaptive to
the market and may have less incidence of suicide than those not ex­
posed to these technologies. However, we find none of them have any
statistically significant impact on the probability of the farmers’ suicide.
Several farmers’ groups in Osmanabad district have been created to
overcome the farmers’ distress by encouraging collectivisation.
However, our results show that the farmers’ group does not impact the
likelihood of suicide in any significant way, but the self-help groups
(SHGs) do impact positively. The SHGs, which often are collectives of
10–25 women from economically vulnerable families in India, get
concessional finance from banks. The interest is partially paid by the
state or the central government. The microloans received from banks
are then invested in group businesses or individually. The result shows
that vulnerability is so high that the flow of the finance is not able to
ease the tragic response of farmers. The odds ratio of the families
having membership of SHGs is 1.35, showing families with SHG
memberships are vulnerable families prone to higher suicides.
Environmental factors appear to play a significant role in farmers’
suicide. The non-availability of irrigation, which is required in case of
variability in rainfall or in non-monsoon seasons, significantly adds to
farmers' distress. The odds ratio of families not having access to irri­
gation is as high as 2.1, showing that the odds of suicides among

7
A. Shaban, K. Kourtit, P. Nijkamp et al. Regional Science Policy & Practice xxx (xxxx) xxx

Table 3
Causes of suicide of farmers in Osmanabad district (output of logistic regression).

Factors Expected relations Odds Ratio Coefficient z P>z

A. Personal situation
If was alcoholic (yes=1) +ive 0.781 -0.247 -1.160 0.245
If suffering from any psychological disorder (yes=1) +ive 1.142 0.133 0.950 0.345
B. Family situation
Type of family (nuclear =1) +ive 1.312* 0.271 1.880 0.060
If any member migrated for earning (yes=1) +ive 1.404** 0.339 2.250 0.025
Education expenses of family members (yes=1) +ive 1.612*** 0.478 3.680 0.000
C. Social situation
Pending marriage of family members(yes=1) +ive 1.567*** 0.449 3.140 0.002
D. Economic situation
% of income from farming +ive 0.988*** -0.012 -5.910 0.000
Annual income of the family (INR) -ive 1.000* 0.000 -1.690 0.091
Total owned land by family (acres) -ive 0.979 -0.021 -1.410 0.158
If suffered any major economic losses in the last 3 years (yes=1) +ive 0.042*** -3.181 -11.760 0.000
If the family had a loan from moneylenders +ive 1.204 0.185 0.810 0.419
Total amount of loan at the time of death on the family (INR) +ive 1.000*** 0.000 4.490 0.000
E. Access to ICT
If the family has a radio (yes=1) -ive 1.245 0.219 0.780 0.437
If the family has TV (yes=1) -ive 0.939 -0.063 -0.480 0.635
If the family has a computer (yes=1) -ive 0.450 -0.799 -1.030 0.302
If the family has internet access (yes=1) -ive 3.111 1.135 1.160 0.246
If the family has a landline phone (yes=1) -ive 1.096 0.092 0.140 0.885
If the family has a mobile phone (yes=1) -ive 1.498 0.404 1.620 0.105
F. Collectives
If a member of the farmers' group (yes=1) -ive 0.786 -0.241 -1.170 0.242
If a member of SHG (yes=1) -ive 1.352** 0.302 2.200 0.027
G. Governance
If received any compensation from government (yes=1) -ive 0.787 -0.239 -1.400 0.161
If received any compensation from insurance (yes=1) -ive 0.535*** -0.625 -4.480 0.000
H. Environmental situation
Non-availability of irrigation(yes=1) +ive 2.102*** 0.743 4.220 0.000
Loss of crop due to drought or rain (yes=1) +ive 0.458*** -0.780 -4.230 0.000
Borewell failure(yes=1) +ive 1.515*** 0.415 2.630 0.009
Constant 6.006*** 1.793 4.200 0.000
Pseudo R2 0.2165
LR chi2 504.95 0.000
Log likelihood -913.445
Pearson goodness-of-fit test (Pearson chi2) 3485.10 0.000
Hosmer-Lemeshow chi2(8) (number of groups =10) 17.37 0.026

Note: Odds-ratios * significant at 10%, ** significant at 5%, and *** significant at 1% level of significance.

Fig. 4. Reliability test of the model.

families without irrigation are double than those with access to it. In
Osmanabad, we have encountered many cases where families borrowed
money and invested significantly in borewells, and in case one borewell
failed (no groundwater was found after digging may be up to 800 feet),
another borewell was tried in another place. In case of some of the
families, borewells failed at several places to fetch water, creating
distress for farmers who ended their lives. The logistic regression results
show that the odds of suicide in families having distress because of
borewell failure is almost 1.5 times higher than those not having such
distress. The welfare-oriented governance does bring down the farmers’

8
A. Shaban, K. Kourtit, P. Nijkamp et al.
suicide, as the odds ratio indicate that the families receiving govern­
ment support for their crop failures and economic vulnerabilities have
far less probabilities of suicidal episode.
5.2. A tipping point analysis
Several factors together individually and in interaction with one
another may be creating tipping points to commit suicide for the
farmers. We have attempted to investigate the individual variable im­
pact on the probabilities of suicide among the farmers holding other
variable values at their means. Fig. 5a shows that the probability of 1 or
high risk of suicide is reached at around indebtedness of INR 9–10
million. This range of indebtedness is the tipping point for the farmers for
suicide.
Being dichotomous variables, the other variables may not help us to
reach the probability of 1 for suicide through prediction, but the non-
availability of irrigation more than doubles the probability of suicide
(from 0.070 to 0.150) among farmers. The distress caused due to fi­
nancial burden for marriage of the family members also increases the
Fig. 5. Marginal changes in the probability of suicide in the response to change in a covariate at level (other variables at their means). Note: All the p-values are less
than 0.000 for all margins estimates.
9
Regional Science Policy & Practice xxx (xxxx) xxx
probability of suicide from 0.076 to 0.113, while the nuclear family
increases the probability of suicide from 0.070 to 0.900.
5.3. Paths of influence: a SEM analysis
We also attempted to understand the impact of various factors on
suicide using a SEM (Structural Equation Model). Except in the case of
the social situation score (pending marriage of family members being
only a single variable), we used the principal component to create
scores for each of the factors and thus reduced the number of variables
from 25 independent variables to 8 factors (Fig. 6). To align the vari­
ables so that they together show uni-directional causality, we reversed
the values of variables ‘if any member migrated for earning’, ‘% of in­
come from farming’, ‘annual income of the family (INR)’, and ‘total
owned land by family (acres)’. The goodness of fit test RMSEA and
SRMS tests show that our model is at the margin of fit. Therefore, we
rely more on the logit regression presented in Table 3. However, the
path analysis shows that the economic, social, and family situations of
farmers positively influence suicides as well as personal situations
A. Shaban, K. Kourtit, P. Nijkamp et al.
Fig. 6. Path diagram using outcomes of a SEM for understanding farmers’ suicide.
(except economic situation), which in turn then also positively influ­
ences suicide. ICTs owned by families bring down the economic hard­
ships of families (its is able to inform them about the market situation
and provide other information useful in agricultural production), and
an increase in collectivization raises the possibility of more compen­
sation from the state (governance).
6. Discussion
The study shows significant distress among farmers in India, espe­
cially in semi-arid regions where the ecological systems have experi­
enced changes due to increasing variabilities in rainfalls. Changes in
agricultural practices and social systems have further aggravated the
situation. The chemical fertilisers, insecticides, and weedicides led in­
tensive agricultural practices have massively affected the soil quality,
which now requires incremental inputs to sustain the agricultural
production. In areas like Osmanabad, the emphasis on water-intensive
sugarcane, a cash crop, cultivation has significantly depleted the sur­
face and groundwater (Shaban and Narnaware, 2019). The farming
sector in India has also been affected by economic liberalisation since
1991. The prices of agricultural inputs, imports and export of agri­
cultural commodities, to a large extent, and agriculture credit have
been liberalised. In contrast, the prices of agricultural outputs have not
experienced a commensurate increase, leading to a decline in the profit
margins of the farmers. This study, like other studies, by Patil (2018),
Rawat and Mishra (2018), Dhillon and Bhullar (2019) and
Bandyopadhyay et al. (2021), shows increasing livelihood vulnerability
in the rural areas of India.
Several studies in the past often blamed moneylenders who provide
credit to the farmers at higher interest rates, often 40–50% rate per
annum. However, the present study bring to the fore that these are not
the moneylenders but the formal banking system, both the cooperative
10
Regional Science Policy & Practice xxx (xxxx) xxx
and commercial banking systems, which are driving the farmers into
the debt traps. The interest rates on agricultural credit from commercial
banks vary as per the use of the credit between 7% and 12%. Still,
access to these credits is relatively tricky for marginal farmers as more
documentation and collateral are needed. Micro-finance companies
often provide loans with an annual rate of interest ranging from 18% to
36%, which are easier to acquire as they need less documentation and
collaterals. In comparison to the higher rate of interests, the output
growth in agriculture has been very limited, often 2–4% per annum. On
top of it, are the increasing costs of non-agricultural services and
commodities like education, healthcare, transport, communication
equipment, clothes, electricity, house construction material costs, etc.
This squeezes the profit or margins of the farmers and leads them into
indebtedness, as the case study of the Osmanabad district shows.
Several studies and commissions have recommended the appropriate
prices for agricultural outputs (Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers
Welfare, 2017; Sharma and Malik, 2022); however, they have either
been neglected or half-heartedly implemented by the governments.
Several studies have attributed the suicide of the farmers to alco­
holism (Mishra, 2007; Dongre and Deshmukh, 2012; Nagthan et al.,
2011). However, the present study finds little relation between suicide
and alcoholism. Instead, it reveals alcoholism as a consequence of the
vulnerability, which increases the risk of suicide by farmers in combi­
nation or interaction with other factors such as lower family support
(which often happens due to the nuclearization of families), impending
expenses or existing debts towards marriage, education, healthcare, etc.
The study also importantly highlights that migration of a member from
a farming nuclear family to urban areas for work/earning can be con­
sidered a sign of economic distress as migrant families have more sui­
cides.
The ICT technologies (mobile, phone, TV, internet) are opening new
possibilities to farmers by making them aware of the prices in the
A. Shaban, K. Kourtit, P. Nijkamp et al.
markets and agricultural practices. Mobile phones have penetrated the
farming communities, as shown by the case study of Osmanabad.
Almost 90% of the farmers have mobile phones. However, most Indian
farmers are just literate (with the ability to read and write with some
basic understanding). Most of them are not educated to the level to
understand the formal language (which is often in the English lan­
guage) of the market and experts, thus limiting the use of such tech­
nologies for agriculture and business. This is why we do not find much
impact of ICT on limiting the risk of suicide. In fact, mobile phones are
found to be used primarily for entertainment and personal commu­
nication. A few suicides by farmers were reported as caused by im­
mediate distress on the head of the family due to the demand for mobile
phones by children. Indebtedness of families increases the risk of sui­
cide, and that comes out very clearly through our tipping point analysis.
Nuclear families and marriage expenses are also associated with a
higher risk of farmers’ suicides.
The study reveals that the risk of suicide is a cumulative outcome of
farmers' economic, social, and family situations. Farmers' socio-economic
and family challenges also produce personal situations like alcoholism and
mental illness. The dramatic increase in suicide probabilities is well brought
out by the intensity of indebtedness and lack of irrigation facilities. This
study supports Gladwell's (2000) argument that there is a base rate of a
behaviour determined by several factors, but there is a threshold (tipping
point) which when breached (tipping point) results in a dramatic increase in
that behaviour. This is also well illustrated by the studies by Tittle and Rowe
(1973), Goldney (1998), and Han et al. (2022).
The increased absence of the state from the support systems to agri­
culture has been a cause of concern. The study shows that state support
increases when farmers' collectives are present, possibly increasing the
probability of a voting pattern. That may be why the political parties may be
lobbying with the government to support such farmers’ collectives through
compensations for losses of crops. As such, the study reveals that the farmers
become visible to the state through collectivisation.
7. Policy implications
Two significant policies in recent decades have played their role in
increasing the vulnerability of the livelihood of farmers in India. First,
to raise the farmers' income, water-intensive cash crop like sugarcane
was encouraged in Western Maharashtra and Marathwada in the
1980 s, and that also led to the creation of several sugar mills and co­
operatives. Districts like Osmanabad in Marathwada show how in­
jurious this had been to the agroecological systems by depleting the
surface and groundwaters, leaving little possibility to cultivate other
crops requiring moderate irrigation. Increasing rainfall variability in
Maharashtra's semi-arid regions has also worsened the situation.
Osmanabad, as such, teaches a significant lesson against the publicly
encouraged policy of water-intensive cash crops in semi-arid areas and
subsidised borewells in the 1980 s and 1990 s in India.
Second, the neoliberal state policies since 1991 have made educa­
tion, agricultural inputs, and financial credit costly to farmers while
they remain embedded in the traditional economic setting from the
production side. The gap between expectation and reality leads to
distress and throws many farmers into hopelessness, many of whom end
their lives by suicide. The tipping point that we attempted to estimate
shows that when indebtedness reaches around INR 9–10 million, the
probability of suicide reaches about 1, or the risk of suicide becomes
very high. Further, small landholding, little capacity to withstand dis­
tress selling, and lack of alternative sources of livelihoods, except mi­
gration to cities, add to the farmers’ vulnerabilities.
Given the situation, as revealed by the findings, the collectivisation
of farmers, and financial support from the state to vulnerable families
can be a practical step in overcoming the farmers’ vulnerabilities and
preventing suicides. The diversification of the occupation through en­
couraging small-scale industries remains another critical area. In this
direction, the Government has taken some small steps, and an analysis
11
Regional Science Policy & Practice xxx (xxxx) xxx
of 75 farmers’ companies has shown encouraging results (Shaban and
Narnaware, 2019). Besides educating the farmers about the importance
of the economical use of water for crops, given increasing water scarcity
and rainfall variability, it is necessary for the government to remain
engaged with the farmers through appropriate compensations, assis­
tance, and trainings. Policymakers need to understand that the growth
in production in the traditional farming sector cannot match the in­
terest rate charged by commercial banks, cooperatives, and finance
companies. They only create a vicious circuit, and farmers in compul­
sion to pay the loan often take another loan and finally end in in­
debtedness and hopelessness.
Notably, the changes in the economic system (higher cost of loans,
emphasis on quick growth over sustainability), social system (disintegration
of families and fragmentation of landholding creating small and marginal
farmers, and aspiration of education for children and socially acceptable
elaborate marriage functions), and environmental system (variability in
rainfall, depleting groundwater resources, unsustainable agricultural prac­
tices like sugarcane cultivation in water-deficit climatic regimes), and gov­
ernance (which include neo-liberal policies of market-based economic
practices rather than effective interventions reflected in non-regulation of
interest rates, free agricultural market, market-based crop insurance re­
gimes, and education system, with little intervention with some minor
supports for SHGs, small compensations for crop losses) have created dis­
tress among the farming communities in the district and push many farmers
to suicides. Given that the neoliberal market practices are to stay, and the
state may prefer to find the solution within the market regime, the re­
storation path requires major interventions in economic and social sub-
systems within the market regime. This requires the collectivisation of the
farmers to increase the scale of farming, enabling them to bargain in the
market for the inputs and produce collectively, negotiate with state and
market institutions like banks and insurance companies, and collectively
share the risk rather than individually, and shift from water-intensive crops
to millets, pulses, onions, garlic; horticulture like grapes, pomegranates,
mangoes (for which soil is very suitable and require less water), dairying
and goatery, for which the Osmanabad has enormous potentials. This will
also help in preventing over-withdrawal of ground and surface water.
The success of Baliraja Chetana Abhiyan (BCA), which was run as a pilot
scheme in a few districts of Maharashtra in 2017–18, including Osmanabad,
has taught us several lessons. The scheme's success was due to the freedom
to spend and allocate resources given to the District Collectors as per the
local needs. In contrast, other schemes of the central and state governments
have laid down structures – the sub-sector of spending and caps, the ben­
eficiaries, etc. The freedom to spend as per the specific needs in Osmanabad
in the scheme resulted in the formation of about 14600 farmers group and
75 farmers’ producer companies in 2018, which included a mix of vulner­
able families, women members, and different caste and religious groups
(Shaban and Narnaware, 2019; Shaban and Das, 2018; Banerjee and
Shaban, 2019; Banerjee and Shaban, 2021). This provided new hope to the
district. However, the scheme was abandoned after this experiment despite
its success. This shows a need to provide resources to the districts and allow
them to formulate their policies to overcome the varied developmental si­
tuations the districts face in the diverse socio-ecological system of India. The
third tier of governance, the Panchayat Raj System, was an answer to it.
Despite the 73rd Constitutional amendment to empower the Panchayats,
they wield limited financial and planning powers and remain dependent on
state and country-wide uniform programmes and schemes, which often are
of little help to them in solving their local geographical issues.
A nexus of universities, states, corporations and communities can be
created, where the universities can act as knowledge partners and their
feedback and research can act as corrective mechanisms, as in the case
of BCA, the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (Tuljapur Campus), District
Administration of Osmanabad, and Farmers’ collective experiment
successfully demonstrated (Shaban and Narnaware, 2019, Banerjee
et al., 2023). By fostering dialogues, sharing best practices, and nur­
turing innovation, we can forge a path toward a future where farmers
are not left to face calamities alone but are supported by a web of
A. Shaban, K. Kourtit, P. Nijkamp et al. Regional Science Policy & Practice xxx (xxxx) xxx

interconnected stakeholders committed to their well-being. The ab­
sence of such support frameworks may lead to profound human tra­
gedies. It can potentially throw stable societies and economies into
chaos, eroding even existing governance and human development. The
path of restoration of the system as such will not be path dependent in
the sense that we will not be able to restore it by reversing the practices
but will have considerable hysteresis (Suding and Hobbs, 2009), an
alternative path, or a different restoration path. In other words, the path
of destruction of the system in the region will not be the path of its
recovery.
8. Conclusions
The present study, through the case study of farmers in the
Osmanabad district of India, shows how changes in the socio-ecological
systems can introduce livelihood vulnerability and risk of suicide
among farmers. First, the increasing variability in rainfall (as an in­
dication of climate change) in a rainfed agricultural regime like
Osmanabad has been devastating to farmers’ economic health by in­
creasing the probability of crop failures. Second, the neoliberal regimes
of India have led to the deregulation of financial institutions, which add
to the higher cost of agricultural inputs with variable crop yields and
the thinning of gaps between input cost and gain from output, leading
to the indebtedness of farmers. Third, the increasing nuclearization of
families of farmers has resulted in a loss of emotional support, which
extended and joint families in India used to offer during distress.
Fourth, the government schemes and programmes have largely been
ineffective in addressing the regional distress of farmers as they are
framed in state or national contexts, while the problems are emerging
from the local and regional socio-ecological systems.
The study advances our knowledge of how climate change (rainfall
vulnerability), changes in economic and social systems, and lack of
appropriate contextual policies can increase farmers' tragic response
risk. The study shows how the individual and various socio-ecological
factors interactively together lead the farmers to the tipping point.
The paper also advances our knowledge that uniform policies
framed at the state and central/federal levels in India are of little help
in addressing farmers' distress. It not only cautions the state against
introducing unsustainable agricultural practices like water-intensive
and input-intensive cropping in semi-arid regions of India but also re­
commends making the third tier of governance, the Panchayat System,
more relevant by effectively providing it with financial resources and
decision-making in planning. The BCA in Osmanabad can be considered
a model which provided more financial autonomy and planning au­
tonomy to the district administration to address the vulnerability of the
farmers and to diversify the rural economy (Shaban and Das, 2018).
The study also brings out that it is important to address the fragmen­
tation of landholding in rural areas and the resource base of the farmers
through collectivization and encouraging the state-community-uni­
versity partnerships, which have shown enormous possibilities in Os­
manabad district to address the farmers’ vulnerabilities (Shaban and
Narnaware, 2019). As more than 65% of Indian population is directly or
indirectly related to agriculture, failing socio-ecological system can
compromise the achievement of India of SDG-1(No Poverty), SDG-2
(Zero Hunger), SDG-2 (Good Health and Wellbeing), SDG-6 (Clean
Water and Sanitation), SDG-8 (Decent Work and Economic Growth)
SDG-10 (Reduced Inequality), and SDG-13 (Climate Action).
This paper, through the case study, brings out the significant causes
which increase the risk of suicide by farmers. However, ecological
factors like surface and groundwater and soil quality are localised re­
sources. Further, access and nearness to transport and market infra­
structure may also impact the vulnerability of farmers' livelihoods and
their access to various services. Further studies, as such, are needed
with a geo-spatial mapping approach to reveal the risk and location
relations among the mentioned factors.
Acknowledgments
Funding for the research from India was provided by the
Government of Maharashtra to Abdul Shaban and Bipin Das. The re­
search of Karima Kourtit was funded by a grant of the Romanian
Ministry of Research, Innovation and Digitization, CNCS - UEFISCDI,
project number PN-III-P4-PCCE-2021–1878, within PNCDI III, project –
Institutions, Digitalization and Regional Development in the EU.

Appendix

Table A
Creation of principal component scores for factors.

Factors Transformation if any First Rotation Variance

Eigenvalue explained by the
first PC in data

A. Personal situation 1.1208 varimax 56.6%

If was alcoholic (yes=1) None
If suffering from any psychological disorder (yes=1) None
B. Family situation 1.222 varimax 40.74%
Type of family (nuclear =1) None
If any member migrated for earning (yes=1) None
Education expenses of family members (yes=1) none
C. Social situation
Pending marriage of family members(yes=1) PCA is not used as a single variable
D. Economic situation 1.459 Varimax 24.32%
% of income from farming None
The annual income of the family (INR) Reversed (Maximum – actual value for ith family)
Total owned land by family (acres) Reversed (Maximum – actual value for ith family)
If suffered any major economic losses in the last 3 years (yes=1) None
If the family had a loan from moneylenders None
Total amount of loan at the time of death on the family (INR) None
E. ICT availability 1.841 Varimax 30.68%
If the family has a radio (yes=1) None
If the family has TV (yes=1) None
If the family has a computer (yes=1) None
If the family has internet (yes=1) None
If the family has a landline phone (yes=1) None
If the family has a mobile phone (yes=1) None
(continued on next page)

12
A. Shaban, K. Kourtit, P. Nijkamp et al.
Table A (continued)
Factors Transformation if any
F. Collectives None
If a member of the farmers' group (yes=1) None
If a member of SHG (yes=1) None
G. Governance
If received any compensation from government (yes=1) None
If received any compensation from insurance (yes=1) None
H. Environmental
Non-availability of irrigation(yes=1) None
Loss of crop due to drought or rain (yes=1) None
Borewell failure(yes=1) None
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