Which of the following is not a reason for agrarian distress?

The correct answer is Option (3) → Heavy migration to cities

Option (1) Changed cropping pattern — A reason for agrarian distress (Incorrect). Changing cropping patterns, especially the shift to cash crops, made farmers depend on costly inputs and on market prices, and are named among the causes of agrarian distress.

Option (2) Changing pattern of landholdings — A reason for agrarian distress (Incorrect). The changed pattern of landholdings is the first of the structural changes behind the distress.

Option (3) Heavy migration to cities — Not a reason (Correct). The spate of farmers’ suicides since 1997-98 is linked to the ‘agrarian distress’ caused by structural changes in agriculture and changes in economic and agricultural policies — landholdings, cropping patterns, liberalisation, high-cost inputs and the withdrawal of the State. Migration to cities is a way people respond to hard times in the village; it is not one of the causes of the distress.

Option (4) Shift to cash crops — A reason for agrarian distress (Incorrect). The shift to cash crops is named as the main reason for the changing cropping patterns.