Paddy up in the fields | India Today Insight

On May 25, farmer leader Mandeep Nathwan led a rally of 3,000 tractor-borne farmers to the district headquarters in Fatehabad in Haryana. The farmers were protesting against the M.L. Khattar-led government’s diktat to cut down the area under paddy cultivation in the kharif season. The state’s farmers start transplantation of paddy from June 15. The protest rally, one of the biggest this year (and even as a lockdown was on), underscored the difficulty of weaning Punjab and Haryana's farmers off paddy, a crop which has proved to be problematic for the ecology and economy of both states in recent years.

Paddy is a water guzzler. Both Punjab and Haryana are under immense pressure from the Narendra Tomar-led Union agriculture ministry to come up with a plan to cut down the area under paddy. The Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) estimates it takes 2,500 to 5,500 litres of water to produce a kilo of rice. Farmers are also over-utilising heavily subsidised electricity (in Punjab, it is free for farmers). With the water table receding, they have deployed electricity-intensive pumps to extract groundwater from the depths. And after harvest, the complex process of removing the paddy straw leads to its burning; and the smoke further chokes people in north India—especially in the National Capital Region. Last year, in the first week of November, air quality dipped to 23 times lower than WHO (World Health Organization) recommended levels. This year, amid the lockdown, the cost of manual labour has gone up (the alternative—mechanization—is complex and requires a different method of farming). The minimum support price (MSP) calculations do not figure these aspects so the margins will shrink further. Still, the farmers are unlikely to get out of the paddy trap.

On June 1, the Union cabinet hiked procurement prices for paddy by Rs 53 per quintal to Rs 1,868. This means this year, farmers will have roughly Rs 1,590 per acre as additional income. Punjab chief minister Capt. Amarinder Singh has criticised the hike and demanded more money for the farmers, factoring in the cost of disposal of the stubble. Last year, the two states had to shell out Rs 100 per quintal to farmers as cash incentives for not burning the stubble.

The land under paddy transplantation in Haryana is about 3.2 million acres, and it produces 6.8 million MT of paddy. In Punjab last year, all 22 districts grew paddy on 5.73 million acres. This time the state is pushing farmers to plant other crops in 750,000 acres in these farms. Last year too, farms spreading across 750,000 acres had pulled out of paddy, shifting to cotton (310,000 acres), basmati (295,000 acres) and maize (127,000 acres).

The farmers are being convinced to take on alternative crops like maize, cotton, sugar, bajra, summer pulses and oilseeds, which need a lot less water than paddy (for example, maize needs just four irrigation cycles while rice requires 40 to 45). The depletion of the water table has also hit the state’s plans of inviting investment in the food processing industry.

ALSO READ | India's new wheat basket

In Haryana, the Khattar government has been pushing farmers in 12 districts to diversify their 250,000 acres. To achieve this, it’s offering farmers Rs 7,000 per acre—25 per cent after sowing and 75 per cent before harvest—if they opt for an alternative crop. But the farmers are not confident of getting buyers for their produce if they switch.

Why do farmers love paddy in Punjab and to some extent Haryana? Rice is not even a staple in Punjabi cuisine. Well, it’s simple economics. From an acre, farmers in Haryana and Punjab are able to harvest 30 quintals of paddy. A calculation by the Commission for Agriculture Costs and Prices (CACP) says farmers earn around Rs 30,000 per acre after excluding the input cost of Rs 20,000. And this is assured returns.

Growing rice is also much simpler and farmers can reap the harvest in 90 days (unlike maize, where farmers need to keep vigil against wild animals; or cotton, which is prone to pest attacks). Cotton is procured in Punjab and Haryana by the Cotton Corporation of India (CCI) and the National Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Federation of India (NAFED) does maize buying in Haryana. But unlike what the Food Corporation of India does with rice, it comes late into the market. This forces farmers to stitch deals for less with private traders.

Punjab allowed sowing of paddy from June 10. The farmers have sent buses to eastern Uttar Pradesh and Bihar to fetch the migrant labour back to sow paddy. Apart from enhanced remuneration, farmers are ensuring better living conditions, food and, in some cases, liquor too. The labour which didn’t go back is actually demanding more premium now. Farmers in different parts of the state told INDIA TODAY that the labour is asking for anything between Rs 4,000-4,200 per acre against last year’s price of around 2,700 per acre.

Punjab has had limited success in attracting farmers to cotton. Like paddy, cotton too is procured at MSP. This year, it was enhanced from Rs 5,450 per quintal to Rs 5,825. Farmers have freed up 217,000 acres for sowing cotton (from paddy and guar). In fact, farmers in three districts—Fatehgarh Sahib, Ludhiana and Patiala—opted for cotton for the first time in the past two decades. Most of them switched from paddy because they were not sure of the availability of labour for sowing. But if the experiment fails, they will ditch cotton.

Subscribe to the daily newsletter for sharp insights delivered straight to your inbox https://www.indiatoday.in/newsletter