Punjab needs to stop growing rice. Much has been talked about when it comes to the cultivational practices of this state. But it needs to stop growing rice on an immediate basis because nobody needs Punjab’s rice any longer. Unlike in an immediate post-independence India, today, several states grow rice. And these states do not suffer from water scarcity as Punjab does. For Punjab’s own benefit, the cultivation of rice must be stopped. The desertification of Punjab needs to be stopped, and that can happen only if rice cultivation is brought to a complete halt in the state. Diversification is of immediate importance for Punjab.
There are multiple reasons why Punjab should not be growing rice. Dietary habits, transportation, pollution and water shortage are among some of them. The political establishment in Punjab has always been reluctant to carry out agricultural reforms because farmers are a major vote bank. As a consequence, Punjab’s water table and soil health are nosediving. Punjab’s politicians and farmers must now ask themselves: how long will we keep digging our own grave?
Critical Water Table
Ideally, groundwater should be available at a depth of 50 to 60 feet in a state like Punjab, but guess how much one needs to dig to install a tube well in the state. 200-300 ft! And why so? Because in Punjab, groundwater is used indiscriminately to cultivate paddy which is a crop not natural to the western part of the country.
Given the fact that the Union government started giving MSP on rice, it became a handsomely remunerative crop compared to pulses and vegetables. So, farmers from states like Punjab installed tubewells and today almost every big farmer in the state has four to five tubewells. With indiscriminate use of groundwater, the water level started depleting and today it has reached around 300 ft. In the past two decades, the groundwater table in Punjab has been falling at the rate of 25-30 centimetres a year. This should have ideally sent alarm bells ringing in Punjab, but nobody seems to be concerned about the unprecedented pace at which groundwater is depleting in the state.
Dietary Habits
Nobody consumes rice in Punjab except for when they eat “rajma chawal” or “kadi chawal”. So, does it make sense for Punjab’s farmers to destroy their land by growing rice, when the local demand for rice is not high? Across India, people consume rice produced by Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, West Bengal and so on. Punjab’s rice is not the top choice of many people. Yet, Punjab’s farmers keep growing rice, thus scripting their own imminent downfall in the future.
By growing rice which nobody in Punjab eats, the state is incurring needless transportation costs. This results in fuel wastage. Fuel which could be saved, lowering India’s import bills and thus hiking our forex reserves. It only makes sense for any state to grow crops that can be locally consumed. But that is not the case with Punjab’s rice.
Pollution
Every year, Delhi-NCR is turned into a gas chamber in October and November as farmers in Punjab and Haryana burn stubble – produced due to the cultivation of rice. Rice cultivation leaves behind a lot of agricultural waste, which is burnt in the form of stubble. Stopping rice cultivation in Punjab would do millions of people good, and save them from being poisoned to death slowly every year.
Wasting Water
Water which could be used by states like Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Rajasthan and others is being wasted in Punjab to grow an alien crop there, only so that the farmers can avail MSP benefits. This is, as a matter of fact, nothing short of snatching opportunities from people of other states. The wastage of water in Punjab for growing rice is something that needs to be stopped immediately.
Snatching Opportunities
Farmers in Punjab are essentially migrant workers. The people who own farmlands are not the ones who till their fields round the clock. All of this, while the farmers of other states suffer under a mountain of issues that could be solved if Punjab gave up rice cultivation.
Farmers of other states could avail more water, the people in India’s national capital could get a new lease of life since stubble burning would stop, and the people of Punjab themselves would secure their agricultural future. Right now, the farmers of Punjab, by cultivating rice, are digging the grave of their future generations.
If rice cultivation is stopped in Punjab, the biggest winner would be the state itself. It would put an end to its fast-depleting water table, get incentivised for crop diversification, cut down on pollution and get in sync with nature.