Giving Compass' Take:

• Aastha Sethi explains researchers suggest banning highly hazardous pesticides to reduce farmer suicides in India. 

• How can funders work to address systemic mental health problems in India? 

• Read more about addressing pesticide suicides


In India, there are around 31 farmer suicides every day, and 948 every month. In addition, 570 non-farmers commit suicide every day causing immense family and community distress. Though much public attention has been focused on farmer and farm-labour suicides, little has been said about possible solutions that aren’t predicated on structural shifts to the agricultural sector, the economy, or combating climate change. After more than a decade of research, the Center for Pesticide Suicide Prevention (CPSP) at The University of Edinburgh suggests that there may be a solution—a quick fix of-sorts—that could mitigate the number of suicide-related deaths in India: banning highly hazardous pesticides (HHPs). Recent policy shifts towards sustainable agriculture, combined with evidence that banning pesticides can reduce suicide-related deaths, presents a unique window of opportunity for us to address this problem.

Understanding the link between pesticides and suicides
Pesticide consumption is one of the three most important forms of suicide in the world, accounting for nearly a fifth of the world’s suicides. Close to 95 percent of pesticide-related suicides take place in rural communities in low and middle income countries. This can be seen as a legacy of the Green Revolution, which exponentially increased the availability and use of highly toxic pesticides in agriculture.

Currently, there are 86 pesticides being used in India that have been banned and/or are being heavily regulated in other countries. Thirty percent of the pesticides used in India are classified as Class I pesticides by the World Health Organisation (WHO), which means that they are extremely hazardous, and deadly when ingested even in small quantities. Within rural communities, the problem of pesticide-related suicides is not limited to farmers alone. The easy availability and unregulated access to pesticides makes the rate of suicide deaths among non-farmers far higher than among farmers and farm labour.

The reasons for this are manifold:

  • Easy access: Anyone can buy pesticides since their purchase is unregulated. They are often not stored safely and can be found lying about in homes, making it easy to ingest them either by mistake, or intentionally.
  • Impulse: According to the WHO, a large number of pesticide related acts of self-harm are impulsive (rather than premeditated). Easy access to lethal pesticides allows people to immediately act on impulsive suicidal thoughts. Without it, the person would have to go out of their way to find a means of attempting suicide, potentially giving them time to reconsider harming themselves.
  • Low awareness: Limited knowledge regarding proper usage and storage of pesticides also contributes to a number of accidental deaths. In 2015, 7,672 people in India died due to accidentally ingesting pesticides and insecticides. For instance, in Maharashtra, ten people died due to cooking food in the same drum where they had mixed pesticides—deaths that could have been easily prevented.

Read the full article about farmer suicides in India by Aastha Sethi at India Development Review.