CM Adityanath Claims ‘No Farmer Suicides in Last 6 Years In UP’, Data Show 398 Cases - Merin Mathew, Nidhi Jacob

Factchecker.in

On March 6, 2023, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath claimed that no farmer had died by suicide in the last six years. But, 398 farmers and 731 farm labourers died by suicide between 2017 and 2021 in the state, official data show.

“Sugarcane farmers in Uttar Pradesh were forced to burn their crops and attempt suicide but in the last six years, no farmer in Uttar Pradesh has died by suicide,” the UP CM claimed while flagging off 77 tractors for farm machinery banks set up in cooperative sugarcane and sugar mill societies in Lucknow.

This claim is false.

The Bharatiya Janata Party came into power in the state in March 2017 and was re-elected in 2022. Between 2017 and 2021, the year for which the latest data are available, Uttar Pradesh recorded 398 suicides of ‘cultivators/farmers’ (82% men and 18% women) and 731 suicides of ‘agricultural labourers’ (92% men and 8% women), as per data from the National Crime Record Bureau’s (NCRB) annual Accidental Deaths and Suicides in India reports.

The NCRB classifies suicides by ‘persons in the farming sector’ into farmers/cultivators and agricultural labourers. The report defines a farmer/cultivator as those whose profession is farming and includes those who cultivate their own land as well as those who cultivate on leased land/other’s land with or without the assistance of agricultural labourers. An ‘agricultural labourer’ is a person who primarily works in the farming sector (agriculture or horticulture) whose main source of income is from agricultural labour.

The NCRB report further classifies farmer suicides into farmers/cultivators who cultivate on their own land and those who cultivate on leased land. UP recorded 289 deaths by suicide of farmers/cultivators who cultivate on their own land and 109 deaths by suicide of those who cultivated on leased land.

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