Farmer Terms of Trade and Farmers’ Suicides in Maharashtra (India)

Farmer Terms of Trade (FTT) in this study is the margin between changes (%) in prices paid by the farmers for required agricultural inputs and prices received for per units of products. Number of farmers’ suicides in Maharashtra state of the India (−0.58) and share in national figures (−0.6) is negatively associated with FTT and positively (0.76) with increasing input prices. Negative status of FTT is linked to increasing prices of agricultural inputs (−0.33) and profit is associated (0.60) with changes in prices of agricultural outputs. These, adverse economic conditions are major causes of indebtedness, deterioration of economical and social status, psychological depressions and suicides. Therefore, controlled prices of agricultural inputs and stabilized steadily growth in output prices matching to input prices are the key solutions in rescue the farmers and agriculture from its current stage.