Wheat-paddy cycle vicious, tough to evade sans support

Minna Zutshi

Tribune News Service

Ludhiana, June 16

The wheat-paddy monoculture has had deleterious effect on the soil health and groundwater in the state. Diversification is an option that Ludhiana-based Congress leader Gurdev Singh Lapran is ready to explore if issues like marketing and procurement of the produce are addressed. He owns 15 acres at Lapran village in the district.

Conscious of the disastrous consequences of water-guzzling paddy, he is willing to explore alternative crops that are financially viable. “Farmers actually want to get out of the wheat-paddy cropping cycle. The cost of this cropping pattern in terms of environmental degradation is high,” he said.

Cultivating crops unthinkingly, without taking into consideration the local soil and water conditions, is detrimental for farmers as well as ecology, said Lapran. “Paddy is water intensive. Diversification would reduce water consumption, revive depleting water table and also ease soil stress.” He emphasised the need for a strong marketing mechanism and government support to make crop diversification remunerative.

Notwithstanding the small landholding of three acres, AAP leader Tejpal Singh Gill’s family is attempting to move out of the wheat-paddy cycle. For a few years, the Gill family tried commercial cultivation of flowers. Presently, their focus is on growing pulses and vegetables.

“Apart from vegetables and pulses, we also grow basmati rice for which comparatively less water is required,” said Gill. Expressing concern over the rapidly-declining water table in Punjab, Gill said, “Earlier, water was easily available at 80-90 ft, now it has gone down to 300-400 ft. Farmer suicides are the tragic fallout of the extreme financial burden on the farmers.”

The farmers will have to move out of the wheat-paddy rotation for their own well-being and also for saving the environment, added Gill.