The tragic suicide of two brothers in Harinau village of Faridkot is not an isolated incident. Each such incident lays bare the widening cracks in the state’s farm economy.
With wheat crop ready for harvest, another challenge is staring farmers in the face. Witnessing unseasonal rainfall, the fear of rise in diesel and fertiliser prices due to the conflict in West Asia has caused an added stress to farmers.
Advertisement
Official data offers only a partial glimpse. According to the National Crime Records Bureau report for 2023 — the latest available — 174 farmers in Punjab died by suicide, 133 of them small landholders without farm labour.
Advertisement
On ground, farmer unions insist the real numbers are far higher, as many cases remain unreported or are classified differently.
The reasons are neither new nor unknown. Mounting debt remains at the centre of the crisis. For a majority of farmers — nearly 85 per cent of whom own less than five acres — agriculture has steadily become a losing proposition.
Advertisement
Rising input costs, stagnant returns and shrinking landholdings have eroded farm viability. A single crop failure or price crash can push already indebted households into a spiral from which recovery is nearly impossible.
Farmer leader Balbir Singh Rajewal feels, “Weather has emerged as a decisive aggravator. Increasingly erratic patterns — unseasonal rain, high-velocity winds and temperature fluctuations — have made farming riskier than ever.”
“Recent spells have already caused an estimated 15–20 per cent damage to the wheat crop in parts of the state, with fears of further losses looming. Last year, floods damaged paddy, while subsequent price crashes in maize, peas and potatoes compounded the distress,” he added.
“The potato glut this season is a telling example. A bumper harvest in 2026 flooded mandis, while cold storage capacities quickly reached saturation. With a narrow post-Holi window for storage, farmers were forced into distress sales. Prices in April crashed to as low as Rs 90–160 per quintal — translating to a meagre Rs 2–6 per kg in some districts — far below production costs,” added Rajewal.
Ironically, even diversification — long touted as a solution — has failed to take off meaningfully.
‘Absence of assured returns’
Agriculture economist Devinder Sharma said diversification cannot be achieved through rhetoric alone. Sharma said, “There is an absence of assured returns beyond wheat and paddy. Crops outside the Minimum Support Price (MSP) safety net remain exposed to market fluctuations, with little or no compensation during calamities.”
Farmer leader Raminder Singh Patiala echoes this sentiment. He says wheat and paddy continue to dominate as these offer food security, stable marketing and lower perishability. The last constructive study on farmer suicide conducted by Punjabi University, Patiala, in 2017-2018 shows that suicides are most prevalent among small and marginal farmers.
A survey covering seven districts — Faridkot, Muktsar, Patiala, Mohali, Fatehgarh Sahib, Ropar and Hoshiarpur — recorded 572 suicides among farmers and farm labourers over 45 months between 2013 and 2016, with indebtedness as the single largest trigger.
Rise in input cost
The study suggests that the crisis, therefore, is systemic. It is not merely about crop loss or price fluctuations, but about an economic model that has ceased to be sustainable for cultivators.
Former Punjab Agriculture University vice-chancellor SS Johl also advocated for assured marketing and MSP for alternative crops. He was quick to add that diversification cannot be possible till the time the government will keep on providing free electricity and water to farmers. Johl, who was in 2004 heading the committee on agriculture planning, had in a report recommended giving direct benefit to farmers and encouraging them to grow alternate crops. “We are importing huge chunks of pulses and dumping rice by emptying over underground water. I had submitted the report to then financial commissioner development and the chief of Punjab Agro. Sadly, the callous attitude of the bureaucrats failed the initiative and did not take up the issue with then Union Government,” he said.