BIDAR: A 30-year-old pregnant farm woman committed suicide along with her seven-year-old son in Udbal village of Humnabad taluk on May Day. She was led to this desperate act because the factories did not purchase her sugarcane crop. Mallamma Balreddy and Bhag Reddy became the 24th and 25th victims this year of the farm crisis affecting the district.

All of them were sugarcane growers. Failure of sugar factories to buy their cane forced them to take the extreme step.

"The rate of suicides has increased with the onset of summer and with the sugarcane crushing season of the factories coming to an end. As many as 14 farmers have committed suicide since April 22 to this day. The Government has not recorded these. The Government records are prepared in a such a way as to downplay the seriousness of the problem," says Karnataka Rajya Raitha Sangha secretary Veerbhushan Nandgave. He has kept a count of farmers' suicides in the district since the first such case in 1996.

"Sugarcane has to be harvested in 10 to 12 months. If not, it loses moisture and becomes dry.

It cannot be crushed and has to be sold only as bagasse. This does not fetch any money," he explains. If a small farmer does not get the money he invested in cultivation, he cannot sow seeds for the next year. Faced with this crisis, he is forced to commit suicide," he says.

Bidar is the third largest sugarcane-growing district in the State after Mandya and Belgaum. There is an estimated 25 lakh tonnes of sugarcane on nearly 76,000 acres of land in the district, or nearly one-fifth of the total cultivable land.

This year, farmers have a bumper crop. However, they have been made to suffer for this as there are no buyers. The crushing capacity of the three co-operative sugar factories is around 15 lakh tonnes. The rest of the crop is standing in the field, losing moisture and weight.

The concentration of suicides this year is, however, entirely linked to the sugarcane crisis. As many as 73 farmers have committed suicide since 2003 in the district.

The figures for suicides in other sugarcane-growing districts of the northern belt this year are: six in Belgaum, four in Bagalkot and one each in Gulbarga and Bijapur.

Mr. Nandgave has demanded that the Government ensure that the factories crush entire cane crop in the district, easily done by extending the crushing season of factories.

The sugar factories blame the Union and State governments for the problem. "The Union Government did not allow us to export sugar in order to keep prices under check. This has pushed down cane prices and our revenues," says former Minister and Naranja Sahakari Sakkare Karakhane president Gurupadappa Nagamarapalli.

Agriculture Minister Bandeppa Kashempur said compensation claims for 10 of the 29 recorded suicides had been given already. "Seven claims are pending and we are yet to receive forensic reports for 10 others."

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