For over two and a half decades, suicides by the farming community in India have become a cause for concern (Figures 1, 2a and 2b). At the all-India level, states like Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Maharashtra have become the hotspots of farmer suicides (Figures 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8). This issue in India has triggered academic discourse, but very few public policy initiatives have been put forth to redress a problem of this magnitude. By now, it is clear that suicide by farmers is a complex phenomenon. It is easy to quantify the suicide deaths; however, it is difficult to decode the reasons in their entirety. It is estimated that during the period between 1990 and 2010, the years of life lost on account of farmer suicides increased by 12%. During the same period, India moved from the 20th to the eighth position in the global index of life lost due to suicides (Mishra 2014).
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