Bangalore, May 17: If crop failure had led to farmer suicides in north Karnataka’s semi-arid, drought-prone Bidar district in 1998 and 2002, a bumper sugarcane crop for 2006-07 is now at the root of a spate of suicides in the district over the past three weeks.

The suicides have peaked with the approaching end to the sugarcane processing period at sugar factories—on May 31—even as an unofficially estimated five lakh ton of sugarcane crop is still standing on the nearly 76 lakh acres cropped in Bidar district. Despite the Karnataka Government’s assurances to farmers that all standing crop will also be processed at the three major cooperative sugar factories in the district, even if it takes a while, small farmers who invested heavily on the cash crop through borrowings from banks and moneylenders are not seeing light at the end of tunnel.

Since January this year, local authorities in Bidar have recorded 33 sugarcane farmer deaths while the Karnataka Rajya Raitha Sangha (KRRS), a farmers’ party, puts the figure at 44 for this year alone. “Till April 30, we had verified 29 farmer suicide cases in Bidar. This is a name-wise list. Since May 1 there have been four more cases. We are still finalising a report on the latest deaths,” Deputy Commissioner Munish Moutgil said. “Our findings indicate that out of the 29 suicides for which causes have been ascertained, 23 deaths are related to the sugarcane crop crisis in the district. The accentuating factors are many,” the DC said. On the surface, the suicides seem to be a result of excess production of sugarcane leading to a steep drop in the prices for sugarcane from Rs 1,750 per ton last year to around Rs 800 this year, a sharp decline in demand for sugar and cooperative factories reneging on agreements with member farmers.

“With the end to the sugarcane crushing season fast approaching, the suicide rates have increased. If not harvested in time sugarcane loses its value. When a small farmer does not get his expected return on the investment, he cannot afford anything the next year. This is leading to the crisis,” says KRRS secretary Veerabhushan Nandgave.

The suicides have come even after the H D Kumaraswamy-led Government intervened in April and announced an additional cover of Rs 100 to farmers on every ton of sugarcane. The state Government has also promised the factories concessions on the lines provided in Maharashtra, including a waiver of purchase tax, in an effort to get them to process the farmer’s produce.

Karnataka, like other major sugarcane producing states, has already notched a high in sugar production, accounting for 21 lakh metric ton and is expecting to touch 26 lakh metric ton against last year’s high of 17 lakh metric ton by the end of season. The area covered by sugarcane in 2006-07 in the state rose to 3.98 lakh hectares against a targeted 2.59 lakh hectares or last year’s 3.25 lakh hectares.

While macro economic factors are largely behind the suicides, there are also allegations of policies of the sugar factories and cruel local politics involving the factories. The three major cooperative factories in the region for instance are under the control of Congress politicians—the Naranja Cooperative Sugar Factory under Aurad Congress MLA Gurupadappa Nagamarapalli; the Mahatma Gandhi Cooperative Sugar Factory under former Congress MLA Bheemanna Khandre; and the Bidar Cooperative Sugar Factory under his son Ishwar Khandre.

Politicians like Humnabad MLA Merajuddin Patel from the ruling Janata Dal Secular and Prakash Khandre, the ruling BJP MLA from Bhalki, have alleged that the cooperatives are not taking in sugarcane produced in their constituencies. The Congress leaders have accused the ruling parties of being insensitive to the farmers and the factories.

“It is true that out of nearly 3,000 farmers waiting for their crops to be harvested nearly 1,600 are in Humnabad. But the district administration does not see politics in the issue,” Moutgil said.