The political economy of farmers’ suicides in India: indebted cash-crop farmers with marginal landholdings explain state-level variation in suicide rates

Background A recent Lancet article reported the first reliable estimates of suicide rates in India. National-level suicide rates are among the highest in the world, but suicide rates vary sharply between states and the causes of these differences are disputed. We test whether differences in the structure of agricultural production explain inter-state variation in suicides rates. This hypothesis is supported by a large number of qualitative studies, which argue that the liberalization of the agricultural sector in the early-1990s led to an agrarian crisis and that consequently farmers with certain socioeconomic characteristics–cash crops cultivators, with marginal landholdings, and debts–are at particular risk of committing suicide. The recent Lancet study, however, contends that there is no evidence to support this hypothesis. Methods We report scatter diagrams and linear regression models that combine the new state-level suicide rate estimates and the proportion of marginal farmers, cash crop cultivation, and indebted farmers. Results When we include all variables in the regression equation there is a significant positive relationship between the percentage of marginal farmers, cash crop production, and indebted farmers, and suicide rates. This model accounts for almost 75% of inter-state variation in suicide rates. If the proportion of marginal farmers, cash crops, or indebted farmers were reduced by 1%, the suicide rate–suicides per 100,000 per year–would fall by 0 · 437, 0 · 518 or 0 · 549 respectively, when all other variables are held constant. Conclusions Even if the Indian state is unable to enact land reforms due to the power of local elites, interventions to stabilize the price of cash crops and relieve indebted farmers may be effective at reducing suicide rates

Agricultural Exports by Cooperatives, 1980

Sixty-three agricultural cooperatives had direct exports of $3.2 billion in calendar year 1980. Grains and preparations had the largest dollar volume of direct exports, followed by oilseeds, cotton, and fruits. Cooperative share of U.S. agricultural exports decreased from 9.2 percent in 1976 to 7.8 percent in 1980. Asian and European countries were the largest markets for direct exports by cooperatives in 1980.Agricultural exports, cooperative exports, cooperative export marketing, direct commodities exports, indirect commodities exports, International Relations/Trade,

Development of freeze-thaw processing technique for disaggregation of indurated mudrocks and enhanced recovery of calcareous microfossils

Microfossil extraction from indurated mudrocks is widely acknowledged as challenging, especially for foraminifera. Here we report development of the freeze–thaw extraction method through the addition of rapid heating, detergent and ultrasound stages. We use indurated mudrock samples from the Toarcian (Early Jurassic) of Yorkshire, UK to assess the effectiveness and develop the freeze–thaw method. We compare our results from freeze–thaw with those from standard foraminifera processing techniques, including the use of hydrogen peroxide. Processing by freeze–thaw increased the degree of mudrock disaggregation and resulted in no damage or dissolution of foraminifera. Following the freeze–thaw method with treatment in white spirit and sodium hexametaphosphate aided the separation of foraminifera from the disaggregated clays and was twice as efficient as pressure washing. Samples processed with hydrogen peroxide contained damaged microfossils and an under representation of delicate calcareous foraminifera. Many other studies of indurated mudrocks have used hydrogen peroxide to extract foraminifera, and this might have resulted in apparently barren intervals. The freeze–thaw method outlined here provides a low-cost, low-risk and successful method of disaggregating and extracting calcareous microfossils from indurated mudrocks. We anticipate our method may be relevant for other fossil groups and merits further development

Cohabitation and children's living arrangements

This paper uses the 1995 and 2002 waves of the National Survey of Family Growth to examine recent trends in cohabitation in the United States. We find increases in both the prevalence and duration of unmarried cohabitation. Cohabitation continues to transform children’s family lives, as children are increasingly likely to be born to a cohabiting mother (18% during 1997-2001) or to experience their mother’s entry into a cohabiting union. Consequently, we estimate that two-fifths of all children spend some time in a cohabiting family by age 12. Because of substantial missing data in the 2002 NSFG, we are unable to produce new estimates of divorce and children’s time in single-parent families. Nonetheless, our results point to the steady growth of cohabitation and to the evolving role of cohabitation in U.S. family life.children, cohabitation, family dynamics, family structure

Making the small oblique parameters large

We compute the oblique parameters, including the three new parameters $V$, $W$ and $X$ introduced recently by the Montreal group, for the case of one scalar multiplet of arbitrary weak isospin $J$ and weak hypercharge $Y$. We show that, when the masses of the heaviest and lightest components of the multiplet remain constant, but $J$ increases, the oblique parameter $U$ and the three new oblique parameters increase like $J^3$, while $T$ only increases like $J$. For large multiplets with masses not much higher than $m_Z$, the oblique parameters $U$ and $V$ may become much larger than $T$ and $S$.Comment: 9 pages, standard LATEX, 3 figures available from the authors, report CMU-HEP93-17 and DOE-ER/40682-4

Maternal inbreeding reduces parental care in the zebra finch, <i>Taeniopygia guttata</i>

Increased embryo mortality is the most commonly cited cause of reduced fitness in inbred organisms. Reduced embryo survival may be the result of reduced parental expenditure by inbred individuals and here we tested the hypothesis that inbreeding results in impaired incubation behaviour in captive zebra finches. We compared incubation attentiveness of inbred female zebra finches (derived from full-sibling mating) with that of control females (derived from unrelated parents) and found a statistically significant inbreeding depression of 17% in incubation attentiveness. This shows that inbreeding can significantly influence parental behaviour. Despite a reduction in the amount of time inbred females spent incubating, their partners were able to compensate for the reduced incubation attentiveness. Incubation temperature also did not differ between inbred and control females. To test for the effect of incubation behaviour, we fostered eggs laid by control females to either inbred or control females at the end of laying. Eggs that were incubated by inbred females had an 8.5% lower hatching success than eggs incubated by control females and, although based on a relatively small sample and not statistically significant, the magnitude of the difference was consistent with differences in hatching success observed in the wild under relatively benign environmental conditions. Thus, under more challenging environmental conditions usually encountered in the wild, the reduced incubation attentiveness of inbred females could provide one proximate explanation for the consistent finding of decreased hatching success with increasing maternal inbreeding in birds