Address policy constraints to make white gold glitter

Paul Singh Sidhu

PUNJAB is a water-stressed agrarian state. The rice-wheat cycle is blamed for unsustainable extraction of groundwater. Punjab has a comparative advantage in producing wheat. The culprit is water-guzzling rice. High-yielding hybrids and varieties of cotton represent a viable option for promoting water-resilient agriculture by shifting some area from rice to cotton if farmers can get comparable returns. Cotton is the main kharif crop in five development blocks of Fazilka, Bathinda (two each) and Mansa (one) districts and is also grown in other blocks of these and adjoining districts. A target of 5 lakh hectares under cotton appears reasonable.

During 2021-22, cotton prices were more than 20 per cent above the minimum support price. With low domestic and global inventories, the US ban on products containing Xinjiang cotton due to human rights issues and demand escalation as countries learn to live with Covid-19, market prices in 2022-23, especially early in the marketing season when Punjab cotton enters the market, are expected to be attractive.

Having suffered due to pink bollworm (PBW) infestation last year, farmers are reluctant to grow cotton. The main reasons for PBW damage were poor quality seeds and pesticides, deficient farm advisory services and late rains. With cotton sowing starting in the last week of April, the new government needs to launch a campaign to assure farmers that it will proactively mitigate institutional and policy constraints bedevilling cotton production. 

Widespread PBW damage in 2021 was preceded by the whitefly attack in 2015. While the fund-starved Punjab Government has paid about Rs 1,200-crore compensation to whitefly and PBW-affected farmers and labourers, it has not done much to address the key issues of substandard seeds, spurious pesticides and deficient farm advisory services. The first priority should be to ensure timely availability of sufficient quantity of good quality, pest-free Bt and desi cotton seeds, pesticides, and other inputs.

There is an urgent need to operationalise robust and time-bound protocols for prompt collection, transportation, analysis and follow-up action on a large number of seed, pesticide and fertiliser samples. Analytical and human resource capacity of seed, pesticide and fertiliser testing laboratories of the Department of Agriculture requires modernisation and expansion. Instead of local agriculture development officers, the collection of samples should be assigned to 3-4 state-level teams of officers. Technical training of regulatory personnel should cover relevant legal aspects for pursuing penal action against suppliers and distributors of substandard inputs in the courts. It will reduce recurrence of cotton failure.

Provide canal water

Due to poor quality of groundwater in the cotton belt, canal water should be released from mid-April onwards for timely sowing and improving germination and growth. Need-based irrigation at critical stages of crop growth may be necessary if the monsoon is deficient. In the medium term, minors and distributaries should be rehabilitated so that canal water reaches tail-end farmers. In tubewell-irrigated areas, the farmers should be provided electricity for cotton sowing.

Strengthen farm advisory services

Crores of farmers worldwide have reduced their dependence on chemical sprays by planting transgenic cotton, called Bt cotton, which was genetically engineered to produce PBW-killing toxins from the bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt). The Bollgard (BG), Monsanto’s first-generation Bt cotton, was approved for cultivation in 2002. The PBW developed resistance to the toxin around 2009. The second toxin introduced in the second-generation Bollgard (BG-1) cotton began failing around 2014, although substantial damage was not reported from Punjab till 2020.

For preventing development of resistance to Bt toxins, farmers were required to grow about 20 per cent non-Bt plants (known as refuge) in Bt cotton fields. Accordingly, each seed packet contained  450g Bt and a bag of 120g refuge. Farmer training programmes and advisories did not emphasise the critical importance of mixing Bt and refuge seeds before sowing. Consequently, Punjab’s farmers threw away the refuge and planted only Bt seed, hastening the development of PBW resistance to second-generation Bt cotton.

The Department of Agriculture and Punjab Agricultural University should emphasise the need to have 20 per cent refuge plants in Bt cotton, proactively undertake insect-pest and disease surveillance, and promptly roll out control measures when infestation exceeds the critical threshold. Careful monitoring of whitefly, PBW, American and spotted bollworm infestation is necessary. Major sources of infestation such as oil mills, ginneries and stacks of old cotton stalks should be sanitised and watched. WhatsApp groups of cotton growers should be formed for real-time delivery of production, protection and marketing information. 

Bt cotton management in US

To keep resistance at bay, the introduction of Bt cotton in the US in 1996 required 25 per cent non-Bt cotton state-wide. In 2006, billions of sterile PBW moths were dropped from airplanes for mating with the rare resistant moths to produce sterile progeny. After suffering for more than a century, US cotton-growing areas were declared free of PBW in 2018 by a combination of Bt cotton and sterile moths. 

Indian seed companies were recently allowed to mix 120g non-Bt refuge with 450g Bt seed in each packet. With the available analytical facilities and expertise in the seed testing laboratories of the Agriculture Department, it is not possible to determine the exact percentage of two types of seeds in each packet. Lack of regulatory capacity  and a profit-maximising approach were bound to harm the farmers. It is possible that some of the seed sold as costly Bt cotton may have a higher proportion of cheap non-Bt seed. The Punjab Government should get this anomaly rectified by the Centre.

Reduce marketing taxes

The highest marketing taxes at the rate of 6.5 per cent in Punjab are a burden on the farmers. A private trader reduces the offer price by 6.5 per cent while buying cotton in Punjab’s mandis. With a yield and price of 10 quintals and Rs 6,000 per quintal, respectively, loss to a farmer due to high taxes is more than Rs 3,000 per acre. Like in Gujarat and Rajasthan, private traders should be allowed to buy cotton directly from the farmers by paying 1 per cent tax.

The author is former Senior Agriculturist, World Bank (South Asia Region). Views are personal

Send your feedback to letters@tribunemail.com