Looking back 2025: Lack of policy, floods wreaked havoc on farming

Agriculture in Punjab, which is the mainstay of the state economy, not only faced challenges in policy making in 2025, but the weather gods, too, played their role in shrinking the income from it.

The floods in the Ravi and Beas wreaked havoc with farms getting submerged in most parts of Doaba and parts of Majha and Malwa. Crops on 4.30 lakh acres were damaged, leaving farmers flustered.

Paddy, which brings nearly Rs 50,000 crore into the state economy, was damaged on 3.47 lakh acres, while other crops like cotton and maize were also damaged.

The silt brought in the fields by the floods in August-September made it difficult for the flood-affected farmers to sow the wheat crop in time. This meant that many of these farmers are unlikely to have a good wheat harvest, after losing their paddy crop in the floods, thus suffering damages caused by two unsuccessful crops.

But the biggest shocker came in shape of the data presented by the Centre in the Upper House during the just-concluded winter session of Parliament. The net sown area under agriculture in Punjab shrunk by 12,000 hectares between 2019-20 and 2023-24.

This sure has set the alarm bells ringing. In a state where industrial growth has plateaued and services sector is yet to reach its peak, the only sector, which pumps roughly Rs 80,000 crore into the state economy each year, is also showing signs of slowdown. With incomes from agriculture declining and no signs of crop diversification, keeping the rural economy in sound health is the next big challenge for policy makers.

On the policy front, another year passed, with the government still unable to present its much-awaited agriculture policy. Presented to farmers in 2024, the draft policy continues to remain on the drawing board. This delay drew the ire of several farmer unions. These union leaders had lost substantial ground after their arrest by the Punjab Police in two separate incidents. They later gained a fresh lease of life leading the protests against the now withdrawn land pooling policy for the urbanisation of agricultural land.

Not all was bad in the agriculture sector though. Some baby steps were taken by the government to push for crop diversification, with farmers switching from water-guzzling paddy to cotton and maize. Area under cotton increased, and would have set the tone for next year had it not been for the floods. Not only was cotton crop damaged, the quality was affected, leading to crop selling at prices below the MSP.

Agriculture Minister Gurmeet Singh Khudian said the area under cotton expanded by 20 per cent and 52,000 farmers got 33 per cent subsidy on Bt cotton seeds. “In six districts, we also switched 11,000 acres from paddy to maize,” he said. He added that the AAP government schemes this year drove transformative change, and the record sugarcane price of Rs 416 per quintal, reflected their pledge to reward farmers’ hard work.

“We also moved towards sustainable agriculture. The incidents of farm fires have reduced drastically by 53 per cent and we continue to encourage and reward paddy growers who go for water-saving cultivation through direct seeding,” he added.