Ecology, Environment and Conservation Paper

CAUSES OF FAMERS SUICIDES IN KARNATAKA: A FUZZY COGNITIVE ANALYSIS

Jayashree S., Aanish Nair, Abhinav Mondal and Abdul Quadir

Abstract

The focus of this article is to determine the prominent causes of farmer suicides from the identified causes of a study by the Institute for Social and Economic Change, Bengaluru from selected districts of Karnataka. There are differences of opinions among the various experts on the causes for agrarian distress and farmer suicides. There has been an increase in the rate of farmers’ suicides in India in general and Karnataka for the past twenty years and the reasons for this has been very widespread. In this research, an attempt was made to determine the hidden pattern for the listed causes and then find out the prominent cause leading to farmers’ suicides through the implementation of Fuzzy Cognitive Maps. Results indicate that a few causes statistically affect farmer suicides in a smaller percentage, but cognitively these few causes can in turn play a role in influencing the causes which affect farmer suicides at a larger rate.