Spotlight
New
Delhi, 28 April, 2017
India’s Thirsty
Crops
FARMS TURNING
ARID
By Moin Qazi
With climate change leading to searing heat waves across the
country, India’s
weather pundits are starting to sweat over this year’s monsoon prospects and
the country’s water equation. According to international water safety organisation
Water Aid, India
has the most rural people living without access to clean water – 63.4 million. The rural poor were highly vulnerable to the
effects of extreme weather and climate change, said its report.
India supports 15% of the world’s
population but possesses only 4% of the world’s water resources. World Bank data shows that only 35% of India’s
agricultural land is irrigated – defined as the artificial application of water
to land or soil. This means that 65% of farming depends on rainfall. Successive
Indian governments have done little to conserve water for off-season use.
Despite constructing 4,525 large and
small dams, the country has managed to create per capita storage of only 213
cubic meters, a relatively small achievement when compared to Russia’s 6,103 cubic meters, Australia’s 4,733, and China’s 1,111. The
country still breaks out in a cold sweat every time the southwest monsoon
(the subcontinent’s tenuous lifeline that arrives anytime between June and
September) is delayed.
India’s water crisis stems from a
complex mix of economic, geographic and political factors. While climate change
has caused rains to become more erratic, most parts of the country receive a
more than adequate amount of rainfall. Water harvesting and management, though
required, remains little more than a fad. Many of the areas that are prone to
flooding are the same ones that face drought months later. A staggering US$52.7
billion has been allocated to so-called Major and Medium Irrigation projects
from the first five-year plan (1951-56) to the 11th (2007-12), but irrigation
has reached only 45% of India’s
net sown area
Today, India’s agricultural sector
accounts for more than 90% of total water drawn but contribute around only
14%to the GDP. Some classic examples of the skewed and short-sighted
agricultural priorities that upset India’s water balance are the farming
practices in some of its States, particularly Maharashtra, Punjab, and Haryana.
The agricultural shift by profit-motivated young farmers has made things worse.
Farmers who once grew millet, sorghum, and other cereals have turned to
sugarcane in Maharashtra, which fetches more
money but is a very thirsty crop. Likewise, farmers have taken to growing rice
and wheat in Punjab and Haryana, two parched States
where the groundwater has sunk even further.
Maharashtra is the
epicenter of India’s
farm quagmire and its landlocked Marathwada belt is a miserable state. It has
been among the worst-affected by water shortages, having faced three bad
monsoons in a row, although this year’s rains have given some reprieve to the
farmers.
Marathwada has the
lowest ratio of actual irrigated land vis-à-vis irrigation potential in the State.
Of the potential land that could be irrigated by dams created in the region,
only 38% is actually being irrigated. For the rest of Maharashtra, this ratio is at 76%. The per capita income
in Marathwada is 40% lower than the rest of Maharashtra.
Farmers drawn to the
region by government incentives have begun cultivating sugarcane, a
water-intensive crop that is ill-suited to Marathwada’s semi-arid
climate. Sugarcane consumes about 22.5 million liters of water per hectare
during its 14-month long growing cycle compared to just 4 million liters over
four months for chickpeas, commonly grown in India and called gram locally.
Growing sugarcane in
drought-prone areas is a recipe for water famine. Yet, the land area under
sugarcane cultivation in Maharashtra has gone
up from 167,000 hectares in 1970-71 to 1,022,000 ha in 2011-12.
Maharashtra is India’s
second-biggest producer of this water-intensive crop, despite being one of the
country’s drier States. Sugarcane now uses about 70% of Marathwada’s irrigation
water despite accounting for 4% of cultivated land.
The sugar mill buildup
in Marathwada was initially pushed by politicians in the region trying to
replicate the prosperity of mills in other areas of Maharashtra
and was focused on areas with plentiful water. But later politicians opened
mills everywhere, even in areas where drinking water is not available.
Sugarcane is a popular crop because farmers sell cane directly to sugar mills,
avoiding the need for middlemen who take a cut of the profits. Sugarcane’s
sturdiness also attracts farmers; mature cane withstands heavy rainfall or dry
spells and is also less vulnerable to pests and diseases compared to other
crops.
A similar story is
playing out in Punjab and Haryana, but with
rice taking the place of sugarcane. Rice covers 62% of Punjab’s
area under cultivation, up from 10% in 1970. The expansion of rice has been
similar in neighboring Haryana. Though the droughts have hit all crops, India still
produces more rice, wheat, and sugar than it consumes.
It is quite natural
for farmers to plant rice and cane when both power and water are almost
free. In fact, government policies encourage them to do so. The government
buys sugar, wheat, and rice at remunerative prices, which assures economic
justice to these farmers.
Without government
intervention to reset the revenue balance in favour of less water-intensive
crops, experts warn the sustained production of thirsty crops will further
deplete scarce water resources. The government currently asks farmers to shift
to less water consuming crops, but it does little to support such a change.
Erratic prices for vegetables, oilseeds, and pulses limit the incentives for
farmers to plant them.
India will need to rein in the systemic
corruption that has dogged irrigation projects across the country. In some States
these projects have sparked social unrest and political turmoil as seen in Maharashtra and Karnataka, where tenders were awarded at
grossly inflated prices.
The proliferation of power plants is
another area that requires serious re-examination. Government policies that
make water and land cheap in the area seem to be the reason for the location of
thermal plants.
Scientists and
activists have long warned that relentless groundwater extraction is leading to
a steep drop in water tables across India — the world’s fastest rate of
groundwater decline. Some farmers in these parched states now need to dig 300
feet (91 meters) for water, compared to five feet (1.5 meters) in the 1960s,
according to research by a local government scientist. They’ve been drilling
wells deep beneath the tilled soil into the volcanic rock – 700 feet, 800 feet,
even 900 feet down. Lately, though, many farmers drill wells and find
nothing at all. In some severely affected areas, bore wells as deep as 500
meters (1,640 feet) have all gone dry. The underground water level has dropped
so much that there is no water at all
“I think there’s
really no way out. There’s no water, so there’s no harvest, so there’s no
income. And I think that’s the fate of every farmer,” said Vithal Mhaski, a
farmer whose family has gone into debt drilling wells that turned out to be
dry. “It’s time we took a longer view and stop the wastage of water with
sugarcane.”
Realising its
predicament decades ago, Israel
studied the “water equation” and made itself all but independent from Mother
Nature. Israel took 70
years to solve its water problem; India won’t need that long, as it
can emulate Israeli advances. But New
Delhi must summon the political will to
act before water runs out. Changing governance, raising money, and
installing technologies all take time and the climatic stresses are mounting
fast. ---INFA
(Copyright, India
News and Feature Alliance)
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