Rice bowl threatened
Major Indian producing states Punjab and Haryana push to replace rice with cotton and maize.
Punjab and Haryana are at risk of losing their status as India’s rice bowl as authorities try to persuade farmers to switch to cotton and maize.
The official explanation is that shrinking water tables in the two northern states have made crop diversification away from water-intensive rice an urgent priority.
But farmers say the real reason for the sudden urgency is the shortage of farm labour triggered by the country’s Covid-19 lockdown, which is only starting to be eased.
In the two states, an estimated one million labourers, mainly from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, undertake the bulk of paddy transplanting each year.
Mandeep Singh is among the farmers worried about finding help with his crop this year. He farms 40 acres in Nabha, a sub-division of Patiala district in Punjab, about 290 kilometres north of Delhi.
“Our paddy-sowing labour is stuck in Bihar,” he told Asia Focus recently. “I have been pleading with them on the phone to return but due to the complete suspension of public transport, how will they come?”
The process of paddy sowing begins this month and normally lasts until late June. It is an extremely labour-intensive operation if done through transplantation of seedlings. The alternative is using a direct seeded rice (DSR) machine for direct sowing, but buying or renting one is expensive.
The Punjab government is pushing to increase maize and cotton planting areas to 550,000 hectares in 2020-21, from 392,000 hectares in the last season. While this could help ease pressure on the water table, there is no denying that the shortage of labour could help the state reach its targets if rice farmers feel compelled to switch.
But Mr Singh dismisses the idea of diversifying into cotton, maize, or other less thirsty coarse grains. While rice is very water-intensive, so is cotton, and in any case he is not sure local soil conditions are right for other crops. In any case, the DSR method is too costly for him.
“Buying a DSR machine would cost 900,000 rupees (US$11,790),” he says. “A small farmer like me does not have that much money. Besides, who will spend so much money on a machine that will be used only once during the year?”
Mr Singh says he is now considering leasing out his farm if he can’t afford to run it himself.
The Punjab government early this month moved to address farmers’ concerns by offering a subsidy of up to 50% on the purchase of DSR machinery for paddy as well as maize. Officials said more widespread adoption of the equipment would immensely benefit the state in saving ground water and help farmers to tackle the labour shortage.
Pritam Singh Hanjra, a farmer in Panipat district of Haryana, has grown paddy on over 100 acres of land for years. “But how will we grow it this time? There is no labour. My labour is trapped in Supaul district of Bihar,” he says. He has been begging state government authorities to send a train to bring the workers back.
Mr Hanjra also rejects the suggestion that he grow cotton, maize or sugarcane in place of rice. “There is no infrastructure for cotton,” he says. “Where are the seeds, pesticides and markets for cotton in eastern Haryana? Apart from that, our soil does not suit cotton.”
Cotton is mainly grown in southern and western parts of Haryana, while maize prices are simply not attractive, he adds.
Shamsher Singh, a farmer in Sirsa in western Haryana, grew some cotton last year but lost money on the venture. He said the government fixed a minimum support price (MSP) of 5,450 rupees ($71) per quintal (100kg) but he had to sell his crop for 5,000 rupees per quintal because nobody was prepared to pay the MSP.
But small and marginal farmers, unlike operators of larger farms such as Mr Singh and Mr Hanjra, have no problems with switching from paddy to cotton or maize as hiring labourers is less of an issue for them.
Punjab and Haryana have long been considered the rice bowl of India, with the crop covering 4.5 million hectares in the two states. But high water consumption by rice has had consequences. In Punjab, the ratio of water extracted and water recharged is 165:100 litres.
In Haryana, the ground water table has decreased by one metre every year since 2013.
In Haryana, 60% of the 128 groundwater blocks have become “dark zones” due to overexploitation. In Punjab, districts including Sangrur, Moga and Jalandhar have run dry. The production of one kilogramme of rice consumes about 5,000 litres of water.
The two states are promoting crop diversification to mitigate the water crisis. Haryana set a target of 50,000 hectares of land for diversification last year but failed to achieve it. This year it has doubled the target.
Haryana Agriculture Minister Jai Prakash Dalal concedes, though, that rice has no match when it comes to profitability. “This year vegetables flopped. Poultry has sunk,” he says.
Global rice rices are the highest in several years in light of supply shortages resulting from two main factors: drought in Thailand and, more recently, logistics disruptions caused by the global pandemic.
Sutantar Kumar Airi, director for agriculture and farmers’ welfare in Punjab, maintains that the crop diversification plan was not triggered by the shortage of farm labour. He said its objective was to save the water table.
“The situation has become alarming. In Sangrur, we are extracting 265 litres of groundwater for every 100 litres of water recharged,” he said. The state added 175,000 hectares for maize and cotton cultivation in 2019-20.
With rice production seen as falling in Punjab and Haryana, the southern state of Telangana is emerging as the country’s new rice bowl, producing some 22.5 million tonnes of paddy in the last season.
State officials have been aggressively promoting expansion of rice planting, with the acreage devoted to cultivation more than doubling in recent years.
Improved irrigation systems and the construction of warehouses to increase storage capacity by 4 million tonnes have also helped.
Rice output in Punjab was estimated at 17 million tonnes in the last season, and the amount in Haryana was marginally lower. India’s total output was 115 million tonnes.
“There is no infrastructure for cotton. Where are the seeds, pesticides and markets for cotton in eastern Haryana?” PRITAM SINGH HANJRA
Haryana rice farmer