Punjab: Unsustainable Agricuture

From the breadbasket of India, Punjab has become a basket-case economy.

• Endowed with ample water and good soil, Punjab’s happy, progressive people had a dream that is now a distant memory.
• The Centre’s policies aimed at increasing food production to ensure an adequate supply of grain, coupled with export restrictions, have taken a toll.

 

In the early years of development government focussed on trickled down theory based on experiences of USA and other western countries.

• However, the expected progression of Punjab from agricultural economy to industrial powerhouse to service-sector leader never took place.
• Food processing, essential for agricultural prosperity, never bloomed — for instance, Punjab exports wheat but imports wheat flour.
• Till such time as off-farm jobs aren’t created, discontent is going to rise.

Reasons

It’s not right to blame GR for the whole mess — there’s more to it than that.

Research:

• Starved of state government funds, PAU has witnessed decreasing faculty strength and new research has completely ceased in the last decade.
• The state government imposes high taxes on the purchase of foodgrain by FCI. If just 5 per cent of this were provided to the PAU, it would help its revival.
• But political expediency takes precedence over vision and foresight to dis-incentivise the monoculture of wheat and rice

Modernization trap:

• Punjab is suffocating from its estimated 6,00,000-plus tractors.
• Tractor-ownership is viable only if they are operated for over 900 hours per year. In contrast, average farm-use in Punjab is possibly half this figure.
• As a result, once a farmer buys a tractor, he works for the bank for life to repay the loan and interest.

Unsustainable water utilisation:

• Over exploitation of groundwater because of the free power provided to farmers has resulted in the water table falling to dangerously low levels.
• The cost of drawing water from greater depths is causing more indebtedness among farmers.

Indiscriminate Fertilizer use:

• Urea is sold at one-fourth the price of table salt today.
• But the excessive use of cheap urea destroys the soil and leads to more plant vegetative growth.
• An explosion of insect and pest populations is then inevitable.
• Indiscriminate, unregulated sale of pesticides and spurious products is leading to an ecological disaster.