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Farmer suicides fell in J&K after 2019: What it says about mandi monopoly

After Article 370 was abrogated in 2019 farmer suicides in Jammu & Kashmir (J&K) dropped sharply: from 31 in 2019 to just one in 2020, three in 2021 and one again in 2022. What explains this dramatic decline? The key lies in the cessation of the state's Mandi Act following the abrogation. Farmers in J&K were no longer forced to sell exclusively within government-designated markets. The mandi monopoly had ended. Is the Mandi system really responsible for farmer deaths? The short answer is unequivocally yes. The pattern is clear not just in J&K, but also in several other states where partial or full mandi reforms have occurred. What follows is an explanation of how mandi monopoly endangers farmers. Mandi monopoly Among the very few things that economists agree upon is that monopoly is bad. But there is nowhere as absolute a monopoly as the one faced by Indian farmers. The mandi is the king they must serve to earn even the bare minimum. Imagine this scenario: if a buyer tries to directly purchase even a kilogram of tomatoes from a farmer's field, both parties would be committing an illegal act. Instead, the farmer is compelled to transport their entire harvest to a government-designated market yard. At these regulated markets, farmers also have low negotiating power. Licensed traders strategically delay purchases, squeezing farmers into forced sales as perishable produce deteriorates. Farmers get low prices, consumers get poor quality, middlemen profit enormously. Mandi monopoly creates middlemen who have an iron grip on the agricultural supply chain, enabling them to systematically exploit both farmers and consumers. The human cost of this monopoly becomes starkly clear when we examine the numbers. Data across states The dramatic turnaround in J&K is not an isolated case. After delisting fruits and vegetables from the mandi, Odisha's farmer suicides fell from annual average of 190 to 50 in 2015 and 0 from 2017 onwards (data from the National Crime Records Bureau). Similar reforms in Gujarat in 2015 reduced farmer suicides average from 538 to 187. Uttarakhand farmer suicides dropped from an average of 27 to zero. When Delhi removed mandi regulations outside designated yards, suicides dropped from average of 10 to none. Assam saw the average fall from 309 to 105 annually. The pattern is unmistakably clear wherever reforms have occurred. Rajasthan provides a particularly instructive case. After implementing direct purchases outside mandis' purview in 2010, farmer suicides dropped from 851 in 2009 to 390 in 2010, and declined further. In 2015, with fees on fruits and vegetables removed, suicides fell from 373 in 2014 to 76 in 2015 and 43 in 2016. Yet in 2020, Rajasthan reversed course, reinstating mandi controls over private yards and direct centres. Suicides surged from 26 in 2019 to 101 in 2020 and 239 in 2022. The data is unequivocal. Reducing mandi monopolies saves lives consistently. Increasing their reach increases farmer suicides. But statistics alone do not explain why market restrictions literally kill. Let's trace the deadly mechanism. Structural trap People often blame farmer suicides on debt, drought, or crop failure, but these are immediate symptoms and not the underlying cause. In any business, survival during downturns depends on reserves built during better times. This is precisely where the mandi monopoly inflicts its deepest damage. By restricting farmers to selling only within designated yards and only to licensed traders, it ensures farmers operate on very thin margins. When a failed monsoon, bad crop, or family emergency strikes, there is no buffer between struggle and collapse. Research consistently shows small farmers receive merely 6 to 10 percent of the final retail price, with intermediaries pocketing the remainder. Worse still, the same middlemen who underpay farmers often become their creditors, offering loans at interest rates as high as 36 per cent to 60 per cent annually. This vicious cycle of exploitation becomes, for many, an unbearable burden. This changes when the restriction to sell only in regulated markets is removed. Even if many farmers continue using mandis, the presence of alternatives dramatically shifts power dynamics. Traders face competition, price realization improves, and middlemen lose leverage. Better margins enable farmers to save, repay loans, and weather tough seasons. Bihar offers an instructive example. It abolished agricultural produce market committees in 2006 without alternatives, causing chaos due to lack of aggregation and price discovery. When farmer cooperatives (FPOs) emerged in 2012-14 and were able to pool produce and, unlike other states, also sell directly in absence of mandis, the outcomes improved and suicides dropped to zero. The lesson is clear: infrastructure helps, monopolistic coercion kills. Ending mandi monopoly Can we morally justify sustaining a system demonstrably deadly to farmers? Immediate and complete reform is not merely beneficial; it is ethically non-negotiable. Monopolistic markets severely distort India's broader food economy, preventing direct trade and blocking vital market signals farmers need. This causes waste in some areas while others face shortages, as farmers base decisions on misleading cues from intermediaries rather than genuine consumer demand. Breaking the monopoly immediately improves the system. Market transparency emerges, stabilising prices and improving farmer incomes. Suicide rates plummet. The freedom to sell produce is not an abstract privilege. It can literally mean the difference between life and death.