Crop diversification is the most talked about subject, particularly in the month of April and May number of suggestions are put forward to save water from all quarters, especially from the intellectuals who are associated with water. This process has been going on at least for two decades but as September approaches, all suggestions on water saving and crop diversification vanishes and the new topic of pollution from stubble burning emerges. This topic of crop diversification is not new in Punjab, it started way back in 1985 with the recommendations of Dr. S.S. Johl’s committee. The farmers of Punjab are front-runners in adopting any new technique may it be crop nutrition, agronomy on plant protection, seed varieties, etc but then why they are not going for crop diversification remains a question years after years. The reason may be the questions which are there in the minds of farmers are not satisfactorily answered by agriculture technologists as well as govt.
In the current scenario, all are just busy shifting the blame of water depletion on paddy and farmers cultivating it but without realizing the fact that the actual problem is not only with paddy rather it lies in crop intensification. The situation gets confused when the PAU is not commenting on this. The old brigade is all out for crop diversification, publicized hike of the area under moong crop popularly known as Sathi Moongi which further intensified use of water to the tune of 42 cm in peak summer. It would have been of some helps to save water if they have advocated Kharif moong which farmers are not ready to sow due to multiple problems related to it.
Some intellectuals are even advocating that government should compulsorily ask farmers to leave some portion of land vacant to save water. I hope before giving such a recommendation they would have studied the alternative source of income for the farmers as well as labor.
The million-dollar question is why we are not able to make other crops replace the paddy with any other crop. I may add there that during the last three decades we are trying to replace paddy with traditional crops. But nobody understands that these crops were replaced with paddy because of their low productivity and economic viability. The research efforts of the PAU were too centered around paddy-wheat rotation and no efforts were made to introduce economically viable alternative crops. Let us discuss the unsolved problems of traditional crops.
Cotton: The crop which can economically replace paddy by keeping the income of farmers intact and at the same time requires 8 cm less water. The area once known as the cotton belt has almost changed to paddy due to two main reasons some areas were waterlogged and lack of effective check on insect pests and the introduction of hybrid seeds where Govt’s quality checks prove ineffective. Of course other minor problems like high cost of seed, lack of germination due to early skewers, weeds, manual picking, spurious pesticides reduction in yield of wheat after cotton due to late sowing, etc.
If we really want to replace Paddy with this then the following needs to be done:
- The seed should be made available through government organizations after proper testing, pesticide checking should be increased and if the pesticide samples fail not only the retailers, a firm producing it, and agriculture officers passing it should be implicated.
- The research needs to be done on varieties that can be plucked mechanically.
- Again marketing is a major concern, the government should enact a law that nobody can produce below MSP which should be the cost of cultivation + C2 formula.
- Another issue is water. The crop needs water in April and May for sowing which farmers are hardly able to get as there are canal closures for repair and electricity supply is restricted to 2 to 4 hours.
- Moong: The most talked about the crop of the year 2022 because of its guaranteed procurement by the government at MSP. The sole purpose which the government highlighted was to save water, what government fails to realize is that the moong they are promoting is the moon whose time period of sewing is around 10th April and harvested by the end of June, so it will be a 3rd crop consuming minimum 45 centimeters more water rather than reducing the usage of a scarce resource. It will see how much area is transferred from paddy to main reason moong. The problem with moong is the low yield of about 5 quintals per acre and this lower yield returns even with high MSP. If both sell it MSP then Paddy’s return is around rupees 61200 whereas moong only fetches 38,237 reducing the income of farmers by 50%. The question now arises whether the intellectuals advocating this will they like to reduce their salaries and pension to half. Another issue is that crop is more prone to diseases and hence expenditure on pesticides increase manifold. Another problem is that all the pods do not mature at the same time hence farmers need to harvest the crops and then dry them if there is rain at that time the crop gets discolored which leads to problems in marketing due to quality issues.
- Basmati: Basmati can be a good alternative to the paddy for water saving. The farmers are ready for it and even some do it. It saves water because its sowing is late mostly in July when the monsoon arrives hence putting lower pressure on groundwater. The reason why it is not sown on large scale is that of price variations. The price of basmati ranges between ₹2800 and ₹3400 per quintal but when the new crop arrives many times it comes to even ₹1700 to ₹2000 per quintal. Now the MSP of Paddy for 2022 is ₹2040 per quintal, the question is that yield of basmati is around 17 quintals per acre whereas that off paddy is 30 quintals per acre. The irony is that once the crop moves out of the farmer’s hands its price again shoots up. Giving profit to a handful of traders and corporates. The farmers were demanding its MSP and assured procurement but the govt has no policy so far.
- Sugarcane: Many are advocating sugarcane as a replacement for paddy but to my surprise, the evapotranspiration of paddy is 73 centimeters whereas sugarcane is 180 centimeters how which can be helpful in saving water. Moreover, this crop is for the whole year means neither land gets any time to recuperate nor water is saved during any period the of year. Last year the farm unions virtually forced the government to increase the price of sugarcane as it was an election year. The biggest challenge farmers face is that Private Miller’s does not make timely payments, even many times farmers have approached the government to get back their hard-earned money. Another issue is that the mill owner put the arbitrary cuts on sugarcane under the garb of “Khori”.
- Maize: Maize too is most seen as 3rd crop by farmers but not a replacement of the Paddy, main reason for this is that through its MSP is fixed but it never fetches the MSP because it is not procured by the govt agencies. Moreover, the yield of maize is less than two third of paddy. Other problems faced are costly hybrid seeds and increased attack of pests, eating to increase expenditure on pesticides. The crop does not tolerate standing water at the early stages of growth, due to heavy rain the crop is destroyed. On the whole labor cost is too high. If the income from Paddy and maize is compared as per data available from PAU, paddy gives ₹35,312 whereas maize ₹20,900 per acre. Suppose if a farmer has 4 acres of land his total income is reduced by ₹60,000.
- Soybean: Taking a flashback to nearly around the year 2000, Madhya Pradesh which is known as the hub of soybean wants to shift to cotton, whereas Punjab wanted to replace cotton with soya bean but experiments failed. Again in 2005 and 2006 Punjab farmers’ Commission along with the Department of State agriculture tried to promote it, but failed miserably. Hence putting an end to alternative crops.
- Bajra: Govt. is trying to reintroduce bajra as a Kharif crop under the brand name Nutri Millet, but the farmers will have to face the same problems of ergot (disease) and birds again due to which this crop was abandoned.
This is a true picture of crops that were there before the introduction of Paddy. If we want to replace paddy, we need to bring out some new crops which can be produced in Punjab and be sold in the international market and provide the same or higher income than paddy. It is sole nay to save water while replacing Paddy. Otherwise, the only option is to ban Paddy cultivation.
ROAD MAP AHEAD: If we really want to end this cropping pattern and move towards diversification then we require the following points:
- The biggest challenge we are facing is that we need to increase the farmers’ income while reducing water consumption. To achieve this we need to produce demand-based high-value crops.
- The ICAR and PAU should be given a time-bound research mandate to bring out new crops and varieties which has a higher yield and reduced need for water.
- Paddy and Wheat cultivation is highly mechanized. The alternative to these crops may also have the lowest dependence on manual labor. In addition, it also needs to be understood that the majority of our farmers are small and our requirement is for small machinery.
- Village-level farm agri-processing units need to be promoted to generate employment and additional income. To achieve this help from the industry department and agriculture marketing agencies need to be provided.