Perhaps my interest in sustainable living and responsible consumption began in Punjab in 2007. I, along with some classmates and professors from university, went on a field trip to a Punjabi village called Daudpur (District Khanna). The idea behind the trip was to see for ourselves what we studied in our textbooks – the issues ailing rural India and Indian agriculture.
I don’t think any of us were really expecting it to be as powerful and as impressive of an experience as it turned out to be.
We learnt of the many challenges the farmers in this prosperous region faced. These ranged from all-powerful middlemen to erratic power supply, caste divisions to disinterested youth, and migration to politics and policies. Each of us probably took something different from that experience. What remains most strongly with me is how rice cultivation is swallowing up the region’s water resources.
The unsustainability of rice production in Punjab
Rice typically grows in water surplus areas and needs an average of 2,500 litres of water to produce 1 kg of rough rice. This figure is 2-3 times that of other major cereals. It is then surprising that rice (including the famous basmati) is cultivated in the relatively dry areas of North India.
In fact, Punjab didn’t always grow such large quantities of rice. The area under rice was under 50,000 ha in 1973-74 and expanded vastly to 2.6 million ha in 1999-2000 (over 60 per cent of the total land under cultivation). The largest expansion in area under cultivation came in the 1970s, when it rose by about 12 per cent. This was the era of the Green Revolution, when yields rose by their heighest margin – 5.3 per cent over the the same decade.The extensive coverage of irrigation in this region too was a factor behind this boom in rice cultivation.
This huge expansion of land under rice cultivation has naturally led to a massive depletion of water in the region. This map expresses the sense of urgency:
You will notice something is wrong, somewhere around where the map becomes red. It is the water withdrawal in the north (including Punjab) of the country. The data shows that groundwater has been receding at the rate of as much as 1 foot per year over the past decade (1999-2009). This is much faster than the rate of replenishment and is an indication of the impending disaster awaiting us. Most of this groundwater goes for irrigation (over 90 per cent of the country’s total fresh water, as we saw earlier here).
A drastic intervention is needed
The pattern of water use in the region must change. Specifically, Punjab must shift away from rice cultivation, and all cultivation must be made more responsible in the use of ground water. Irrigation must be made more efficient while rain water should be harvested.
These changes would entail a huge overhaul in the present agricultural and groundwater policy:
- The minimum support price (MSP) offered for rice is higher than other crops. This, according to the farmers we visited in Daudpur, was the main reason they opted for rice over other crops. The MSP is a government regulated price at which the state offers to buy farmer’s produce. While it is intended to be a minimum price, by default, it is also the maximum – the oligopolistic private buyers do not propose much higher rates.
- The electricity needed to operate tube wells is provided to farmers for free. This has often been blamed for the indiscriminate swallowing of groundwater. Farmers said this wasn’t the real reason as they, more than anyone, know the true value of water. And they much preferred a dependable and consistent supply of electricity to a free one.
- There is no monitoring of the digging of tube wells. The farmers in Daudpur spoke of the rapid deepening of tube well lengths in the village as the ground water receded. Some sources put this dropping of the water table at 3 feet a year. While there are some laws concerning the digging and the length of tube wells, the control of the authorities over the matter was negligible.
And so, in order to make sure the north of India isn’t desertified, we require a concerted effort at policy change. Included in this will be the question as to how environmentally sustainable GM and high yielding variety of seeds – requiring larger quantities of chemicals and water – really are.