Farmer suicides in India may be linked to climate change, says study
Climate change has led to over 59,000 farmer suicides over the last 30 years in India. For every 1 degree C increase in temperature above 20 degrees C during the crop growing season in India, there are about 70 suicides on average. The increase in temperature during the cropping season reduces crop yields, thus resulting in increased suicides, says a study published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The study was carried out using data for all the 32 States and Union Territories.
Tamma A. Carleton from the University of California, Berkeley and the author of the paper tested the link between climate change, crop yields and suicide by comparing the number of suicides across India during the period 1967 to 2013 with crop yield and climate data. Data on suicides were collected from the National Crime Records Bureau. She found crop loses due to heat damage cause additional burden on farming households and this at times leads to suicides.
Aschevogel