Close to 150,000 Indian farmers committed suicide in nine years from 1997 to 2005, official data show. While farm suicides have occurred in many Indian states, nearly two thirds of these deaths are concentrated in five states where just a third of the country's population lives. This means that farmers' suicides occurred in those (mainly cash crop) regions with appalling intensity.

On average, one Indian farmer committed suicide every 32 minutes between 1997 and 2005. Since 2002, that has become one suicide every 30 minutes. However, the frequency at which farmers take their lives in any region smaller than the country - say a single State or group of States - has to be lower. Because the number of suicides in any such region would be less than the total for the country as a whole in any year. Yet, the frequency at which farmers are killing themselves in many regions is appalling.