BENGALURU: The first 91 days of 2017-18 have seen two farmers commit suicide every day in Karnataka. Twenty-six of 30 districts have reported deaths, with those in the Cauvery river basin -Mandya, Mysuru, Chamarajanagara -recording high numbers. Chikkamagaluru district in Malnad region has seen the highest number of suicides so far.On July 9, Suresh, 34, hanged himself from a tree on his field in Ankanahalli, Malavalli taluk, about 160km from Bengaluru. In deep debt after two seasons of drought, Suresh's decision to kill himself came after his desperate attempts to find water by sinking five borewells, went futile. He had a debt of Rs 4 lakh from moneylenders and pawn brokers.Suresh's case is yet to make it to the list of farmer suicides maintained by the agriculture department, which shows 207 cases of suicide reported between April 1 and June 30 this year. Of these, the department has rejected eight till now.“Although there were suicides, we found these cases were not of farmers dying because of reasons related to agriculture,“ a senior official told TOI. She added that each case the department reports is vetted by a team of onground officials and some of them are rejected.In 2016-17, for instance, there were 1,128 cases reported at an average of three suicides per day in the state. Of these, 804 cases were found to be fit to be described as farmers' suicide due to agrarian distress. Fifty-four cases are still under review. Officials noted that in the past two years, the number of sui cides in districts of the Cauvery basin -for long considered the agriculturally prosperous region of Karnataka -has been high, indicating that the problem is now more serious. “It is not just districts from North Karnataka and those in the arid belt like Chitradurga, but Mandya and Mysuru too have farmers dying. This is a matter of grave concern,“ one of them said.In 2016-17, Mandya reported 70 farmer suicides, only three of which were rejected, while Mysuru saw 71 cases, 17 of which were rejected. In 2017-18, Mysuru and Mandya together have seen 19 cases, none of which have been rejected yet.The first three months of 2017-18 saw farmers committing suicide in districts barring Udupi, Dakshina Kannada, Yadgir and Ramanagara. In the previous year, all districts except Bengaluru Urban reported deaths.Failed monsoon:While consecutive monsoon failures are seen as a major reason for an increasing number of suicides, the failure of the governments in providing good support price and increasing debt are other major reasons. The state, as reported by TOI on July 12, is staring at another drought year with 20 of 30 districts receiving deficient rain. Two of those in the Cauvery basin have reported scanty rainfall, a shortfall of more than 59%.C Kumari, who works with farmers in the Mysuru-Mandya region, said: “There is an urgent need to implement the Swaminathan Committee Report, which was submitted to the government. While the drought is haunting farmers on a large scale, the problem began earlier. They continue to be indebted because their produce doesn't get enough price.“Depleting resources a concern:Already , un-remunerative prices of all produce seem to have led to widespread discontent, while drought over two consecutive years have severely depleted farmers' resources, leading them to suicide.Mandya farmers TOI spoke to argue that the support price fixed for one quintal of rice is between Rs 750 to Rs 900, while the cost to produce it is more than Rs 1,000. The cost of fertilizers and other input material has been consistently going up, and the general cost of living has also risen, Kumari points out.U Basavaraj, general secretary, Karnataka Prantha Raitha Sangha, said: “From the beginning of 2000, there seems to be a systematic effort from all governments to force the farmer to leave his field. There has been no effort to reduce the input cost, they are making it impossible to avail of institutional loans, which force farmers to borrow at the rate of 36% to 70% interest, which is impossible to repay when we don't have rainfall for four years and prices of produce fall.“