Rain and ruin: How climate extremes are fueling Marathwada’s agrarian crisis 

Marathwada’s agrarian crisis, driven by climate change, economic struggles, and unsustainable farming, has caused widespread farmer suicides, but some women farmers are offering a glimmer of hope by adopting sustainable practices for survival

In Pimpalgaon village of Beed district, Archana Mahadev, 30, looks at her cotton fields spread across almost two acres, with a mix of hope and trepidation. Harvest time is imminent but she is more worried about her husband than she is about saving her crops. In the past seven years, two close family members died by suicide because of crop failure and mounting debts.

According to the government data, in the first six month of this year – between January and June – in the eight districts of Marathwada, 430 suicide cases were reported. Beed was at the top of the list with 101 cases.

In the first week of September, at least 10 people died and crops across 12 lakh hectares were destroyed because of heavy rain in Marathwada. Some of the areas its eight districts received more than 130 mm rainfall in 24 hours, which is unusual for a region considered to be dry and drought-prone. It affected more than 14 lakh farmers in 883 districts of Marathwada. 

The situation, particularly in Beed district, reflects a deep agrarian crisis, exacerbated by climate change, economic hardships, and unsustainable agricultural practices. 

“I am worried about my husband now. Despite being educated, he does not have any job and agriculture is becoming increasingly difficult here. Here the farmers are giving up their lives under distress,” she says.  

The story of farmer suicides, which began in Vidarbha, has now expanded into Marathwada, where more than 100 farmers in Beed alone took their lives in the first half of 2024. CarbonCopy travelled across Marathwada and found factors such as reduced landholding, water scarcity, high input costs, lack of crop diversification, and an absence of adequate support systems, such as fair minimum support prices (MSP), have trapped farmers in a cycle of poverty and despair. 

Efforts are being made to adopt sustainable farming practices, particularly by women farmers who have taken over the reins after losing male members of their family to suicide. These women are now promoting organic, low-cost, sustainable farming methods that rely on natural fertilisers and diverse crop production. These initiatives offer a glimmer of hope in a region otherwise marked by distress and migration due to agrarian collapse. However, without systemic changes, such as better access to credit, crop insurance reform, and climate-resilient agricultural policies, the cycle of farmer suicides and rural distress may continue.

Brief history of agrarian crisis in Marathwada

Bordering the states of Karnataka and Telangana, Marathwada (also known as Aurangabad Division) is surrounded by Vidarbha, Nasik and Pune divisions of Maharashtra. It is situated in the rain shadow belt of the Ajanta mountain range and prone to drought conditions. The main crops grown in the region are cotton, sugarcane, soybean, turmeric, wheat and pulses.

According to social worker Jayaji Paikrao, 70, who is helping the families of deceased farmers in Hingoli district, the root cause of the distress among farmers over the years is the unsustainable and costly means of agriculture introduced by policy makers in the name of “modern agriculture”. 

“In the 1970s with the advent of the green revolution, farmers left the conventional methods and started using the hybrid seeds and chemical fertilisers and pesticides. Our then chief minister Vasantrao Naik was very keen to promote modern agriculture with the advice of agriculturist MS Swaminathan. Initially, it gave good results in terms of high yield of crops, but later farmers became captive of many problems. The hybrid seed demanded more and more water, fertilisers and chemicals and over the years sown area reduced as the land distributed among family members. This increased their cost of production.,” Paikrao said. 

He says, “The government encouraged the farmers to grow cash crops like cotton, soybean and sugarcane. Loans were provided to them through banks. But the crop failed, money was used in non-agriculture activities and debt engulfed the life of farmers.”

The situation now continues to deteriorate due to the added unpredictability of weather patterns caused by climate change, including erratic rainfall and extreme weather events.

Climate change, the worsening factor  

Climate change is adding another layer in this tale of farm distress. Since high fluctuation of temperature and humidity and unpredictable nature of rain is ruining the crops, it causes more financial distress to farmers. 

Dr Ramanjaneyulu GV, executive director, Centre for Sustainable Agriculture working in Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, says the abnormality in the graph of rainfall, humidity and temperature is sharply increasing and for successful agriculture a very detailed micro picture is needed. 

“Unfortunately, the government is just looking at total rainfall in a certain period. It does not look at the distribution of rainfall over the whole season or year. The number of rainy days are coming down and rain on a particular day is increasing. But the gap between the two rainy days is long. So (in the absence of rainfall) any crop may survive for about ten days but not more than that,” Ramanjaneyulu says.   

The government admits the impact of climate change on crops and says the scientific inputs are provided to farmers to avoid losses. Dr PP Shelke, senior scientist and head of Krishi Vigyan Kendra, Hingoli, tells us, “We provide farmers knowledge based support. We form farmer’s groups and tell them what to grow and when to grow so that they may combat the unpredictability induced by climate change. But technology also has a limit. If rain is delayed beyond a particular period for a crop, say 10 days, one can’t do anything.” 

In such a scenario, Ramanjaneyulu points out problems such as unavailability of bank credit to tenant cultivators. As per rules, only land-owning farmers get the credit facility. But in reality the cultivators are tenants.

Ramanjaneyulu says, “Maharashtra, on paper, does not acknowledge tenancy, but in practice there is a lot of tenancy. Tenant farmers cultivate the land and there is no written tenancy agreement and these people (tenants) do not get loans from banks. They go to private lenders and get trapped in debt as the interest rates are very high.”

To make matters worse, a farmer who dies by suicide is not eligible for compensation if he or she took a loan from private money lender. Another problem is crop insurance rules, which define an administrative block or circle (that has many villages) a unit to define the eligibility of getting the insurance coverage. 

“Unless 50% of the crop is not destroyed in a block the farmer of a village in that block isn’t eligible for compensation,” says Dr Ramanjaneyulu. With the increasing vagaries of weather and climate, it would be better for farmers if the deciding unit for compensation is smaller, he adds.  

Ajit Nawale, secretary of All India Kisan Sabha, Maharashtra, says, “We are continuously demanding that the unit of crop insurance should be a village. The climatic conditions, even in a village, varies in two different places. How can a bigger unit with 20 or 30 villages together do justice while assessing the damage? But whenever we raise demand for a smaller unit, the government says that it is not viable for the companies to employ staff at this (village) level. Why is the government worried about the companies who earn so much profit from premium?”

Fertilisers and pesticides: Eating profits, adding carbon impact

This high use of pesticides and chemical fertilisers has played a major role in dragging the farmers into debt. According to statistica, the wholesale price index of pesticides jumped from 107.5 in 2013 to 143.4 in 2023, which is a jump of 33% in 10 years. 

Maharashtra has the highest use of pesticides in India. According to the data available on the government website, in the year 2021-22, a total of 63,284 tonnes of chemical pesticides were used in the country and Maharashtra used 13,175 tonnes of it — almost 21% of national consumption. According to a report by Pesticide Action Network (PAN), the use of pesticides in Maharashtra has gone up by over 35% between 2014-15 and 2018-19, while the national average growth was around 13% between 2014-15 and 2017-18. 

Over the years, the graph of consumption of chemical fertilisers has steadily gone up and this has contributed to degrading the environment and increasing the problem of GHG emissions. According to Fertiliser India, the sale of urea, which is responsible for high emission of (nitrous oxide) N2O — a greenhouse gas 300 times more powerful than CO2 — has gone up by over 12.5% in Maharashtra in eight years — from 2.29 million tonnes in 2012-13 to 2.58 million tonnes in 2023 — an increase of over 12.5% in a decade. Globally, the agriculture sector is responsible for more than 70% emission of nitrous oxide in the atmosphere. 

“Use of chemical fertiliser is a problem for the climate and health of soil. Every 100 kg of urea you use, releases 1.2 kg of nitrous oxide. This means around 350 or 400 kg of CO2. So the more urea you use in the fields, more GHG emission happens and the problem of climate change increases,” says Dr Ramanjaneyulu. 

“Second with the rising use of urea, the water holding capacity of soil goes down. Earlier, the water holding capacity of soil was high so if there is no rain for 10 days the crop would survive but now because of excessive use of urea the soil pores are covered and no water infiltration. Therefore just a delay of five days in rain can kill the crop because there is no moisture in the soil.”

Degrading soil health —aided by depleting water resources further enhances the crisis. 

Depleting water table, declining returns

This dry region has faced frequent drought or below normal rainfall years, particularly since 2011. Because more than 80% of the agricultural land of Marathwada is dependent on rain, it has aggravated the situation in the past 15 years. The water table is fast depleting as the cash crop like sugar cane — which is grown in less than 5% of crop area — consumes two-third of water available for irrigation. This has resulted in depletion of the water table and drying of water bodies. 

Suresh Chand, a farmer of Dharashiv tells CarbonCopy, “The water table has fallen up to 700 feet in many places. Some places, farmers have to dig 1,000 feet deep to get water. This adds to the cost of production heavily. Forget the crops, due to lack of water, we cannot grow even the green fodder for our livestock. It makes animal husbandry also impossible for us.”

Researchers of Tata Institute of Social Science (TISS), Tuljapur, campus have calculated the cost of per acre production of soybean — a widely grown cash crop in Marathwada — and found that a farmer has to spend ₹24,613 for the crop grown on one acre and the best quality soil yields 10 to 15 quintal of crop. Average quality soil produces 8-9 quintal and low quality soil gives 5-6 quintal in a season, which takes around four months to grow—from the sowing stage to harvesting the crop. 

“If four family members are engaged in the cultivation, even the highest yield of 15 quintals will give them ₹75,000 per acre. When you subtract the expenditure, the income is just ₹50,000 in hand. It means for one acre crop, per person per month earning is just around ₹3,100 only,” one researcher explains to this writer. 

It is important to note that the above calculation is for the best case scenario when the soil is most fertile and crop growing conditions are favourable and harvest gets good cost in market. Hanumant Rajgore, a farmer leader and activist, says farmers generally don’t get more than eight quintals of soybean crop from one acre and often they don’t get good prices in the market when they go to sell it. 

He says, “Most of the farmers do not have more than 5 acres of land. So the monthly earning, even in the best yield scenario (as per above calculation) is not more than ₹15,500 per person.” 

Farmers in many districts of Marathwada also complained that they do not get the minimum support price (MSP) for their crops. Farmers want 50% additional payment on the total input and rent on the land, as per MS Swminathan’s formula (C2+50%) to calculate MSP.  

Rajgore says, “MSP is just an announcement by the government. It is not even legally binding for private buyers. So in the open market farmers get ₹500-600 less for every quintel of their crop. Less than 10% of farmers get the benefit of MSP. ” 

The lack of reliable measures like MSP also keeps farmers away from taking up diverse crop cultivation.

Low diversification, reduced land holding

A TISS, Tuljapur, report highlights the low diversification in agriculture in the region. It says, “Despite suitability of land and climate to horticulture in the district, the percentage of farmers with any horticultural land is only about 1.8%. This shows low diversification in the farming sector and high dependence on traditional farming.”

But experts say successful diversification needs an assurance of guaranteed price. In the absence of that, farmers choose high commercial cash crops because prices of other traditional crops are stagnant. They take the risk but all high-value crops see high fluctuation we well. When the yield is high, prices fall.

Agriculture expert Devender Sharma says, “We have seen that in a crop like soybean, the farmer got payment up to ₹8,000-9,000 8 per quintal in a year but then they were forced to sell the same crop for less than ₹4,000 per quintal. This fluctuation is fatal for the farmer.”

Government officials accept reduced land holding, high cost of production and low returns have played a role farmer’s suicides in the region. 

Khushal Singh Pardeshi, additional collector of Hingoli district says, “Land holding is inversely proportional and the expenditure is directly proportional with the time.” According to him, the “soil potential” has gone down due to use of chemical pesticides and continuous cropping. Therefore the “gap between income and needs of farmers is getting wider.”

“To help the farmers, the government gives subsidies on fertilisers. In Maharashtra, the predominant crop is soybean and the government has a fixed MSP for that. For cotton also we are regulating the price. For other crops, the state is supporting NAFED activities with the help of our state marketing federations, which helps the farmers to get good prices.”

Seema Kulkarni, a social worker who is National Facilitation Team member of Mahila Kisan Adhikar Manch (MAKAAM) Forum for women farmers’ rights, says, “All our surveys and observations on the ground show that poverty and inequality have only deepened in the rural hinterlands. Vidarbha and Marathwada are regions where the agrarian distress is increasing. Suicides are on the rise and so is distress migration. Farmers are not getting the price for the crops they cultivate.” 

But all hope is not lost. 

Women farmers, fighting back with sustainable means   

When the husbands die by suicide, their wives are left with no financial or social security to support themselves or their children.  

“Often the family [of deceased farmer] does not give these women any share in whatever property they have. They are exploited by outsiders, money lenders and even by their close relatives,” Paikrao tells Carboncopy. 

Anita Jalinder Mane, 34, in Ahirwahe village of Beed district was ousted from family when her husband died by suicide a few years ago. Today, she is fighting back with the help of some volunteer groups.  

Minakshi Tokle, a social activist working for the welfare of rural women through sustainable agriculture methods,  says, “A better synergy within the family may help. Women generally know what to sow in a particular season and which seed family should preserve for the next crop. We are encouraging active women participation for more sustainable farming.”

In many places in Marathwada, women have pulled themselves together and scripted a story of hope. They have adopted low-cost sustainable ways of farming with home grown fodder and organic manure, saying no to chemical fertilisers and pesticides. With community support they have planned and diversified their crops and sell them at good prices. Paikarao introduced us to several such women in Hingoli district, who have come together to script a story of change. 

Kalawati Savandkar, 40, leads a group of 21 women in Tembhurni village where they grow soybean, cotton, turmeric, paddy besides vegetables and pulses. 

“We were plunged into debt but now we have learned to defeat the misfortunes. We grow at low cost and get good prices for our crops with the help of a community network. It also keeps the soil and water healthy in this area,” Kalawati says.

Kulkarni says with the collective effort “women are now designing their farms with a diverse mix of food, cash crops, pest management crops- basically a farm that is synergistic.” 

“They are moving towards an ecologically sound self-reliant agriculture, saying no to corporate controlled farming, which is chemical intensive and where only commercial crops are grown and sold. This change was possible due to several dialogues with women farmers questioning the present model of agriculture, social structures of discrimination like caste, patriarchy and class,” she says.  

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Hridayesh Joshi

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