Shun paddy cultivation to save water, says Rana Gurjeet

Saving Punjab’s agriculture along with its water is the need of the hour and it can only be achieved if the state’s agriculture is freed from the current crop cycle and diversified, Kapurthala MLA and former minister Rana Gurjeet Singh said.

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Highlighting the vision during a farmers’ event at Maur Mandi, he said farmers should shift from paddy cultivation and opt for maize and sugar beet.

Cultivating maize will provide farmers with more profit compared to paddy. He also said if past governments had taken concrete steps at the grassroots level to help farmers break free from the crop cycle, Punjab would not have been facing the present situation.

He said the farmers cultivating maize should be given a subsidy of Rs 10,000 per acre, as maize consumed half the electricity compared to paddy. He said maize had a high demand in the petrochemical industry for ethanol production, which would yield higher profits for farmers than paddy.

He said for the next two years, he would himself purchase maize crop from farmers at the minimum support price (MSP). Discussing past agricultural trends, he said between 2007 and 2012, cotton cultivation accounted for 20 per cent of farming in the Malwa region.

However, due to heavy losses caused by the pink bollworm pest, many cotton farmers shifted to paddy cultivation. As a result, countless ginning mills and cotton factories in Punjab had shut down, he said.

He said if Punjab’s agriculture was not safeguarded now, the state would deplete its groundwater within the next 12 to 15 years. During the event, he was honoured by the organising committee with a token of appreciation related to agriculture.

The conference, at a first glance, appeared to be a major Congress Party event, but he did not make any political statements.