Agriculture is synonymous with the word farming in India. Agriculture being an important sector of Indian economy supports more than fifty percent of the population. A cursory look at the timeline reveals that the contribution of agriculture after independence for initial two decades was 48% and 60% of GDP. It declined to 26% in 2001-2002. The most tragic part of our country is the report of more suicidal deaths is among the farming community. The changes in the agricultural policy, increased cost of agriculture, the negative impact of globalization, liberalization and privatization on agriculture are some of the factors that are related to increasing suicidal tendency among farmers. Hence, the present paper throws light on the situation and trend of farmers’ suicides over the years. According to the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) data, more than 2,16,000 farmers have committed suicide since 1997. A record of 262630 farmers has committed suicide in India over the last 16 years. The reasons for farmers suicide has been attributed to many causes like indebtedness, faulty loans and mental traumas. The same is the case in Karnataka where farmers depend on rainfed farming. It is visible from farmers suicide data available for Karnataka that highest number of farmers suicides occurred in well-developed and resource rich districts like Haveri (125), Mandya (118), Mysuru (113) whereas the drought prone districts exhibited relatively less number of suicides. This might be due to the ability of farmers in dry districts to cope up with agrarian distress and their awareness regarding the alternate choices available during dry spells. Now it is time for the Government to come up with certain interventions to curb the farmers suicide like Emphasis on irrigation along with end to end solution on creation of resources for ‘More crop per drop' Krishi Sinchayi Yojana, 'Provision of quality seeds and nutrients according to the soil quality of each farm. Large investments in warehouses and cold chains to prevent Post-harvest losses. Promotion of value addition through food processing. To mitigate the risk, introduction of crop insurance scheme at a lower cost. Promotion of allied activities such as Dairy-Animal husbandry, Poultry, Bee-keeping, Horticulture, and Fisheries. According to theory Durkeim’s (1896) the probability of committing suicide is relatively higher with those individuals who are dissatisfied against their expectation. Thus, this was reported as one of the prominent farming related reason for suicide in addition to lack of access to irrigation water. In most of the cases it is the investment that farmer makes and suffer losses so there is a need to design such technologies that need minimum investment.

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