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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