By H.S.Brar
Way back in 1986, Dr. S. S. Johl, renowned agriculture economist was approached by the Punjab government to prepare a report on crop diversification with the motive of shifting the cropping area under wheat and paddy to alternative crops. The report was submitted to the government but it could not be implemented. In 2002, Dr. S S Johl was again approached by the Punjab government to prepare a report on the diversification as the situation has worsened during the intervening period and the percentage of area under wheat and paddy had undergone a quantum jump. Subsequently, various reports have been prepared and schemes launched to change the cropping pattern. The reports have either not seen the light of the day or not implemented.
| Crop | 1966-67 | 1970-71 | 1980-81 | 1990-91 | 2000-01 | 2010-11 | 2014-15 |
| Wheat | 1615 | 2299 | 2812 | 3272 | 3408 | 3510 | 3505 |
| Rice | 285 | 390 | 1178 | 2024 | 2611 | 2831 | 2894 |
| Gram | 633.6 | 357.9 | 258 | 60.7 | 7.7 | 2.1 | 1.8 |
| Barley | 103.8 | 56.6 | 65 | 37 | 32 | 12 | 11 |
| Millets* | 190.7 | 212.9 | 72.2 | 11.3 | 5.1 | 3 | 0 |
| Cotton | 432 | 397.4 | 648 | 701 | 474 | 530 | 420 |
| Maize | 444 | 554.6 | 378 | 188 | 165 | 133 | 126 |
| Sugarcane | 156 | 127.7 | 71 | 101 | 121 | 70 | 94 |
| Oilseeds** | 317.5 | 294.9 | 248 | 115.7 | 86.5 | 53.5 | 45.6 |
| Others*** | 2279.3 | 2004.2 | 1758.1 | 1228.3 | 900 | 807.8 | 701 |
| Total area | 4179.3 | 4693.3 | 5748.1 | 6524.3 | 6919 | 7148.8 | 7100 |
*Millets include Bajra, Jowar, Ragi and small millets
**Oilseeds include groundnut, sesame, sunflower, linseed and mustard
***Others includes pulses like guar, moong, maah, lentil, vegetables, other minor crops and fodder
A perusal of the above table reveals that over the said period while area under wheat grew by 217%, that under rice grew by 1015%. At the same time area under gram came down to less than 1%, under barley 10%, millets disappeared, oilseeds were down to only 15%, barley down to 10%, Maize down to 28%. Area under Cotton grew upto 1990-91, then dropped sharply due to persistent pest attacks during the 1990s, tried to recover but failed and it has now(2026-27 – 70,0000) come down to merely 16%. Similarly, the area under the heading “Others” has seen a sharp reduction primarily due to reduction under pulses and other minor crops and now consists basically of fodder and vegetables only.
This is even more troublesome as there has been a healthy increase in total cropping area which is now 170%, but the same has been usurped by wheat and rice.
The shift to wheat-paddy cycle has lead to increase in water consumption, primarily groundwater, which not only leads to fall in water table but also increased electricity subsidy. Cultivation of paddy, in the Malwa belt, traditionally known for cotton, bajra, guar, pulses production during the Kharif season has lead to a change in the climate of that region. With puddled paddy fields as far as the eye can see, the humidity remains high. On one hand this creates climatic conditions unfavourable for cultivation of cotton, bajra, guar and pulses, on the other hand it adversely impacts the movement of Monsoons, as some recent studies have shown. Further, puddling results is non-absorption of precipitation and whatever groundwater is drawn out is eventually lost. This exacerbates the fall in the water table.
Why Wheat and Paddy?
Before designing a scheme to bring about diversification we need to understand factors why farmers have opted for wheat and paddy over other crops.
- Wheat and paddy are much more resilient to adverse weather and pest attacks as compared to their alternatives.
- They are harvestable mechanically so harvesting is less cumbersome and its cost is lower.
- Government guarantees purchase of the whole of the produce at a fixed price, making them unaffected by demand and supply dynamics.
- Their yields are higher than their alternative crops.
The above factors lead to an assured higher income as compared to alternative crops.
A vast majority of farmers have ended up following the wheat-paddy cycle. Both are grasses and draw large quantities of same macro as well as micro nutrients from the soil. We feed disproportionate quantities of Nitrogen and Phosphorus in the shape of Urea and DAP with not sufficient attention being paid to the rest of the nutrients leading to the imbalance in the soil which affects the nutrition content and immunity of the crops. It is therefore, essential that a variety of crops are sown on rotational basis. The main inhibitor is the expected return, with the alternatives either not giving assured yields and/or prices. The Malwa region of Punjab, with its adjoining areas of Haryana and Rajasthan, was the cotton capital of north India. Persistent pest attacks in the 1990s, remedies for which could not be presented/implemented, resulting in the farmers turning away from it and shifting to paddy. This was facilitated by releasing of tubewell connections and making electricity free for agriculture connections in late 1990s. Once paddy cultivation developed roots, it changed the local weather conditions by replacing hot dry conditions with hot and highly humid weather which suited paddy and harmed cotton farming. This rang the death knell of cotton cultivation. As output fell, the ginning, spinning, weaving industry and oil expeller mills all shut down. The cotton picking labour also shifted to other professions. Gram and Mustard also quietly melted away replaced by wheat, which had assured a comparatively guaranteed yield and assured income, backed by government procurement.
There have been attempts at promoting maize and pulses by way of offering direct cash incentive on planting of maize and declaring that pulses will be procured at MSP. The former has resulted in season specific shifts and latter have not met with expected success as the whole of all farmers’ crop was not procured citing quality issues. Offering subsidy on cotton seeds does not incentivise cotton sowing as the cost of seeds is not the major factor which caused the farmers to shift away from the same.
To make alternative crops competitive, appropriate alternate crops depending upon the area need to be selected and promoted. The focus should be on creation of long term self-sustaining environment for the alternate crops.
The inhibiting factors for non-adoption of alternative crops are lack of assured demand and price and inconsistent yields. One of the methods of ensuring it is to cover the gap between the gross income from paddy and its alternative through schemes like “Bhavantar”. Procurement at MSP for the alternative crops is another/additional option. Let the farmer register online for an alternative crop. Periodic geo-tagged crop verification and Direct Benefit Transfer could be adopted to plug misuse of the scheme.
How a bit of government promotion, with favourable national level policies, can bring about a change in cropping pattern as is borne out by mustard, which has shown an upward trend in not just Punjab but Haryana and Rajasthan too, in the past 5 years. Some of the alternative crops are discussed below:
Cotton
A lot of work needs to be done to revive and arrest the area under cotton cultivation. Unfortunately, we have failed the cotton farmers in ensuring effective pest control and devising techniques to ensure consistent yields. One technique, developed by farmers themselves, which appears to be promising is keeping a row to row distance of 7-8 feet. The farmers practising this method in parts of Haryana and Rajasthan have reported lower costs of sowing, fertigation, lower water requirement, lesser pest attacks, lower pest management costs and still achieving consistently high yields. This needs to be researched upon and publicised, if found effective. In the south eastern districts bordering Rajasthan and Haryana, cotton can still be reintroduced, if we can ensure a moderately stable yield for the farmers and assured procurement by the CCI. At the same time, incentives should be introduced for establishing cotton based industry with the rider that they buy local cotton.
Maize
Another potential alternative Kharif crop is maize. Maize has multiple uses, as food for humans, cattle and poultry feed, source of industrial starch and now, for silage production and as feedstock for ethanol production. PAU should be pushed to develop and refine varieties catering to the different uses as detailed above. Summer Maize is being grown in increasingly larger area for silage production and is processed/consumed through largely unorganised sector. However, it consumes a lot of water. Suitable low water consuming varieties need to be developed. Ethanol plants are being set up, incentives should be provided to them which should be linked to procurement of maize from local farmers through APMCs at MSP. Also, the same approach can be adopted with cattle and poultry feed manufacturers. Further, MARKFED can be roped in to procure maize for processing. Foodgrains are provided to BPL families, maize can be brought under the said scheme and supplied in the winter tranche instead of wheat. Coupled with a crop of summer mung or mash, it can prove to be a viable replacement for paddy, if the government supports it with appropriate incentives.
Summer Mung/Mash
Summer mung/mash not only yields additional revenue but also improves soil’s organic carbon and fixes nitrogen and is also suitable for the window between harvesting of wheat and sowing of paddy or maize. The State government is running Atta-dal scheme, the crop can be procured for utilising the same for the said scheme. A long-term policy needs to be devised and implemented so as to ensure that the crop regains a permanent place in the cropping pattern. Developing early evenly maturing varieties which are resistant to fungal infections at maturity and can be harvested with combine harvesters is the need of the hour. Support for sale at MSP needs to be provided to make the crop’s adoption in the long-term.
Mustard/Gram
With yields of 10+ quintals per acre, there are varieties of mustard available today, which can give a run for the money to wheat. The need is to develop mechanically harvestable varieties. Mustard needs less inputs, both fertilizers and water, as compared to wheat. It will also save precious foreign exchange as India is importing substantial quantities of oilseeds to meet the domestic cooking oil demand. It will enrich the soil, being leguminous. It will clear the farm earlier than wheat, leaving a wider window for sowing of summer mung or mash, as also for maize to be used for silage production.
Similarly, chana/gram varieties recently developed by PAU promise a yield of 10+ quintals per acre. Coupled with the additional income from sale of chana straw, it is a viable alternative to wheat. The only hitch is its susceptibility to adverse weather conditions and to pests at the time of maturity. However, if the price can be assured, farmers can be persuaded to divert a portion of their landholding to this crop. Their price can be assured, by providing assured price band through market interventions by entities like MARKFED and Punjab Agro in cases of low prices and ensuring that a suitable level of tariff/non-tariff import barriers remain to maintain buoyancy in domestic market.
Passing regulation which prohibited mixing of vegetable oils in goods sold as edible mustard oil had given a big fillip to domestic prices and made mustard farming profitable.
Another aspect on which further progress is needed in ensuring development of gram and mustard varieties which can be mechanically harvested. This will not only lower the cost of harvesting but also reduce the dependency on manual labour for the said work.
Sugarcane
There is a contradiction in the case of sugarcane. There is increasing demand for jaggery and sugarcane juice which should push up the area under sugarcane. The crop is labour intensive, not only for weed management but also for harvesting. There is shortage of labour which pushes up the deweeding and harvesting charges. Due to the twin problems of difficulty in getting the “Slip” from the nearest sugar mill and delay in disbursal of payment, farmers are moving away from the crop.
Sugarcane is the natural source of ethanol as molasses can be used by the sugar mills to produce the same. Wide spaced sowing pattern is increasingly being adopted by progressive farmers. It becomes feasible to go in for mechanical deweeding using mini tractors as well as mechanical harvesting using sugarcane harvesters Another innovation is using seedlings developed in a nursery instead of “ 2-3 budded settings”. This results in hardly 10% of sugarcane seed and also the seedlings are raised even while the farm on which they are to be transplanted is “occupied by another crop. Sugar mills are promoting mechanical harvesting by way of accepting mechanically harvested crop on priority doing away with the need of a “slip”.
One more aspect which can be mechanised is “tying” of the crop. If a machine can be developed to tie-up the crop to prevent lodging, it would not only reduce the dependence on manual labour but also quicken the process. PAU in coordination with IIT, Ropar should be approached to develop such a machine.
The following needs to be done to promote sugarcane
- Subsidise equipment like mini-tractors, mechanical harvesters, de-weeders etc.
- Promote nursery development of seedlings instead of conventional method of sowing.
- Ensure maintenance of consistent prices of sugar.
- Ensure that the sugar mills disburse the payments to the farmers in a timely manner.
- Monitoring of the quality of produce of the jaggery units.
Vegetables and Fruits
There are pockets where vegetables are grown predominantly. The biggest challenge for the vegetable grower is to get a viable price. As soon as any crop experiences a bumper harvest, the prices take a sharp downturn. At times, the farmer is forced to till back the ripe crop as harvesting and transporting it to the Mandi would cost more that what he could expect to earn by selling it. We have seen the potato prices slump a few months ago. The retail prices of the crops are many times over the wholesale price offered to the farmer in the APMC.
The situation is a bit better in the case of fruits, however, the gap between the wholesale and retail price is similar to vegetables.
There is a need to conduct a study on the cost of production of a crop, its post-harvest storage, losses during storage/transfer and the ultimate cost to the consumer, over its full cycle. Based on that, formulas need to be developed for the MSP of each crop. The State government in coordination with APMC officials and district administration should ensure that a farmer who brings his crop to the APMC gets a variable “Fair Price” linked to the prevailing “Retail price” for his produce while also ensuring that the interests of all the other players in the marketing channel as well as the consumer, are not harmed.
Large Farmers
Lastly, we need to focus on the bad boys of the farming sector, the large landowners. A small number of farmers have landholding more than 20 acres. As on date they are not differentiated from a marginal farmer in any government intervention, be it free electricity for tubewells, subsidised fertilizers, procurement at MSP or any other government scheme. On the other hand, they are at the crosshairs of the economists as a section which is fattening at the expense of small farmers or atleast should be excluded from the above-stated benefits being provided to farmers at large.
The large farmers should be considered as assets instead of freeloaders. They are economically viable, so instead of punishing them by withdrawing any benefit, they should be used as launching pads of the proposed diversification efforts and asked to mandatorily divert a percentage of their landholding to above stated alternative crops, agro-forestry, vegetables or orchards. This will help in bringing about diversification, while at the same time opening a new avenue to explore, for this section of farmers who have the where withal to take the risk.
- In conclusion, following thrust areas need to be focussed to bring about crop diversification:
- Push research into developing suitable varieties and innovative cultivating methods.
- Provide subsidies for appropriate farm equipments.
- Re-orient the marketing setup to ensure that farmers get viable prices for their produce.
- Develop schemes for the agro-based industry which promote the alternative crops.
- Utilise the Central Government sponsored schemes to support alternative crops.