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Punjab In Crisis?:WHITHERING GREEN REVOLUTION, by Radhakrishna Rao,29 June 2009 Print E-mail

Events & Issues

New Delhi, 29 June 2009

Punjab In Crisis?

WHITHERING GREEN REVOLUTION

By Radhakrishna Rao

 
Punjab, known the world-over for its sturdy farmers’ who heralded the green revolution in the late 60s that marked India’s dramatic deliverance from food imports, is in the throes an all-round crisis: stagnating farm yields and growing agricultural indebtedness. With the fruits of the green revolution, considered the country’s best advertised success story, growing sour at a drastic pace, Punjab is now looking out for a multi-dimensional strategy aimed at sustaining its hitherto high-level of development.

Though farming still continues to account for around one-third of the State’s GDP, stagnating farm yields, abnormally high input costs, declining net income, depleting ground water levels and fast spreading environmental degradation are unfolding a farm crisis in the State. This is  being highlighted by the growing incidence of suicides by indebted farmers.

Indeed, the farm crisis has made prosperous Punjab the most-indebted State in the country. The Radhakrishnan Committee on Agricultural Indebtedness observes: “the average outstanding debt per farm household has been found to be highest in Punjab followed by Kerala, Haryana, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu—all relatively developed and better banked States”.

Almost every village in Punjab has witnessed a suicide in at least one farming family. And each year before the onset of the farming season, small farmers, who account for 85% of the farming population in the State, borrow money from the village money lenders at an exorbitant usurious rate of interest. In many cases, unable to pay back the debt along with the interest induces many of them to get on the path of suicide.

All these developments are not to suggest that achievements of Punjab on the farm front are insignificant. Far from it. The State still leads the world by producing about 10-tonne of wheat and paddy per hectare per year. But then reckless use of fertilizers and pesticides has gone to unleash an ecological havoc of massive dimensions. This apart, excessive and thoughtless withdrawal of ground water for sustaining the cultivation of water guzzling paddy that now covers more than six million acres in Punjab has resulted in the ground water declining, in many areas by at least one metre per year.

Obviously, Punjab follows the California model of agriculture of using huge quantities of pesticides, fertilizers and high-yielding seed varieties for producing crops. But while the California farmers grow crops for six months and leave the land fallow for replenishment for the rest of the year, the situation is completely different in Punjab. There farmers grow two to three crops a year without giving the soil a chance to regain its health. This is why the productivity is declining with each passing year.

Perhaps, one of the most disturbing developments associated with the spread of the green revolution in the State is the rapid spread of deadly cancer in many places, mainly due to the proliferation of residues of pesticides used by farmers. In 2005, when reports of growing incidence of cancer started filtering from the cotton-rich pockets of the State, the Chandigarh-based Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research (PGIMER) started a project to investigate its causative factors.

A preliminary study found a much higher prevalence of cancer in the Tailwind Sabo block of the State, where heavy quantities of pesticide residues were found in the drinking water. Against this backdrop, the report made a strong case for a comprehensive study on environmental health with particular reference to the cotton-growing regions of the State known for their heavy consumption of agro chemicals, setting up of a cancer registry and monitoring the supply of potable water.

Incidentally, Punjab whose landmass accounts for just 2.5 per cent of India’s geographical stretch consumes around 18 per cent of the pesticides used in farms and fields. Moreover, a majority of the farmers are unaware of the safe use of pesticides and disposal of empty pesticide cans. As a result, in the past four decades, heavy quantities of harmful pesticide residues have managed to seep into the underground aquifers of the State. A train connecting Bastinado in Punjab with Bikaner in Rajasthan has come to be known as “Cancer Express”. Number of the passengers travel to Bikaner for a check up at its cancer hospital.

Worse, at his moment, the biggest crisis facing the farm sector is the acute shortage of manpower. Many Punjabi farmers are now finding it difficult to get workers on time to carry on with their farming operations. All these years’ impoverished workers from parts of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar used to support farming operations in Punjab. But with a better developmental scenario in their native States, the workers have not only become expensive but also difficult to come by. In addition, with the National Rural Employment Generation Scheme providing gainful employment to a chunk of the rural populace in both these States, few workers venture out to slog in the paddy and wheat fields of Punjab.

Thus, the labour situation in the State has become so acute that Punjabi farmers are willing to pay any price for hiring labour. According to agricultural economists familiar with Punjab’s farm scenario, the State’s dependence on migrant workers is as high as 90 per cent. On a rough estimate, it uses around 7,00,000 workers to support farming activities spread across 28-lakh hectares. The Punjab Agricultural Department is clear in its projection that the shortage of migrant workers would increase with each passing year and therefore, the State Government has decided to support the farm sector through subsidy on machines that saw paddy through drills.

Against this backdrop, efforts are on to help farmers in Punjab diversify their crop portfolio with floricultural and horticultural crops, both of which enjoy a big and ready export market. The immediate plan is to bring around 5-lakh acres of farmland in the State under diversified, high-value crops that require higher capital investment but fetch lucrative returns to the growers.

Finally, Punjab has a higher per capita income but a dismal social development index. It has the country’s most adverse child sex ration, high rate of female foeticide, farmers’ suicide, substance abuse and large percentage of educated unemployed youth. The State needs a paradigm shift. Indeed, the economy needs to be diversified to create productive avenues for employment for a population so very dependent on agriculture.—INFA

(Copyright, India News and Feature Alliance)

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