Chandigarh: A scientist who was formerly with the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) has challenged the Haryana government’s Mera Pani Meri Virasat scheme to pay farmers for leaving their fields uncultivated or switching from paddy to other crops.
Calling the scheme a “destructive concept” that will harm the farmers’ income and the country’s food security, Dr Virender Lather, who runs a popular online group for farmers, Friday wrote to the Haryana governor as well as the Punjab and Haryana High Court seeking their intervention in the matter.
The “Mera Pani Meri Virasat” (My Water My Heritage) scheme was launched in 2021 to promote crop diversification and water conservation in the state. Under the scheme, farmers who shift from paddy to crops like maize, cotton, oilseeds, pulses, onions, or any other horticulture or vegetable crops are given Rs 7,000 per acre as an incentive.
Even farmers who leave their fields empty without sowing any crop are also paid Rs 7,000 per acre as an incentive. The website of the Haryana Agriculture and Farmers Welfare Department says that the incentive will be given even in case of fallow land.
Another initiative under the same scheme announced by the government in 2022 offers Rs 4,000 as an incentive for farmers who adopt direct-seeded rice (DSR)— a method that consumes less water than the traditional way of transplanting paddy seedlings. In the traditional method, farmers have to flood their fields constantly, but when using DSR, they only need to irrigate once in 10 days.
According to the information available on the official website of the Chief Minister’s Office, these initiatives saved 31,500 crore litres of water and brought 72,000 acres of land under DSR in 2022 during the Kharif season, and the state gave an incentive of Rs 29.16 crore to such farmers.
“With the increasing trend of the farmers, the chief minister in his budget speech has announced setting a target of bringing 2 lakh acres of the area under DSR during the year 2023-24,” it further says.
This year, the government has asked farmers to apply for the scheme by 31 July, according to the website.
However, Lather, who also runs a community group called “Unnat Kheti” on Facebook, has opposed the scheme on several grounds. According to him, paying incentives for keeping the fields empty will make farmers dependent on small compensation and increase salinity in the land, making it unfit for agriculture in the long run.
Speaking to ThePrint, he suggested that instead of keeping the fields empty, the government should encourage farmers to adopt the DSR method or grow dhaincha — a leguminous plant that enriches the soil with nitrogen.
Lather’s suggestion did receive support from Gurjeet Singh Mann — a farmer from Patti Kirpal village of Sirsa who grows paddy every year— but failed to impress Dr Suresh Gahlawat, a former joint director of the state’s agriculture and farmers’ welfare department, who disagreed with his arguments.
While Gahlawat said the DSR method only saves 25 percent of water compared to the traditional method, Mann, through his practical experience in the fields, said the DSR method helps save 40 percent more water than the traditional method.
DSR vs traditional method
Lather said that paddy gives the highest income to farmers, as shown by the insurance payouts in case of damage. Breaking down the payouts, he said paddy farmers get more than Rs 40,000 per acre from the insurance companies, while pulses get Rs 17,500 per acre, bajra gets Rs 18,500 per acre and maize gets Rs 20,800 per acre.
“The paddy belt of Haryana normally gets 600 to 800 mm of rainfall during the monsoon. Hence, sowing paddy doesn’t put much strain on the subsoil water. To restrain farmers from growing paddy will not only be denying them their legitimate income from agriculture but also jeopardising food security because rice is eaten by almost the entire population of the country,” he said.
Moreover, leaving the soil empty will damage its health, as the clay soil in the paddy belt of Haryana will become saline and infertile if not cultivated, he said, adding that “If left uncultivated, salt will come to the top layer of the soil, rendering it unfit for cultivation in a few years because of a permanent change in its physical and biological nature.”
Lather suggested that the government should encourage farmers to adopt the DSR method or grow dhaincha.
However, according to Gahlawat, “Paddy grown through the traditional method requires nearly 25 irrigations. The two months of monsoon save farmers from 8 to 10 irrigations. For the rest of the 15 irrigations, they have to extract the groundwater leading to overexploitation of the resource.”
Gahlawat said that the DSR method only saves 25 percent of water compared to the traditional method. He said leaving the soil empty for one season will not make it saline, but will improve its yield in the next Rabi season.
For Mann, none of the alternative crops suggested by the government to promote its diversification goals are as profitable or reliable as paddy. Moreover, procurement by the government was a major hurdle, and growing paddy by adopting the DSR technique was a better option, he added.
“If farmers choose to sow crops like maize, pulses, or oilseeds, procurement is one of the biggest issues, as the government doesn’t procure these crops. Yield is another. In India, we don’t have the GM seeds of maize like in other countries, including the US, Canada and Australia. Our maize crop is hit by pests, leading to a fall in yield,” he said.
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Is DSR a better option?
According to Mann, DSR is a better alternative, and many farmers are already adopting this technique.
He said he has been using the DSR method since 2018, and from his practical experience, he said he was able to save 40 percent more water than with the traditional method, because, with DSR, they only need to irrigate the fields once in 10 days.
“In the traditional technique, farmers have to keep irrigating the fields constantly, though the agriculture experts advise 25 irrigations with intervals by allowing the standing water to dry up before the next irrigation. But practically, it isn’t possible because farmers are not sure they will get water when they need it, and if fields are left dry for a few days, the soil will develop cracks, leading to seepage of water through the surface of the soil,” Mann explained.
He added that before transplanting, they have to do puddling of the soil so that it can hold water. “If the soil dries up, it will lose its ability to hold water and prevent leakage,” he explained.
As for the question of leaving the land empty, Mann said when he was a child in the 60s, farmers used to keep nearly one-third of their total land uncultivated by rotation, because this revitalised the soil and its fertility for the next crop.
According to Lather too, switching to the DSR method would be better for farmers.
Citing examples from the 1960s, he explained that the agricultural lands in Kaithal and Karnal had developed salinity, and it could be corrected by the sowing of paddy. “When farmers sow paddy, they also put gypsum fertilizer in the fields, which eventually helps reclaim the salinity-affected soil,” he said.
Therefore, he said that the scheme proposed by the government was neither in the interest of the farmers nor of the nation, and urged the high court to take suo motu cognisance of the matter.
“In the public interest, I am requesting your honours’ kind attention to the fact that in Mera Pani Meri Virasat, the Haryana government 2020 has decided to pay Rs 7,000 per acre as a financial incentive to farmers of paddy cultivation areas for leaving their fields totally uncultivated. This is a unique but destructive concept in agriculture to promote non-cultivation of agricultural lands which otherwise is an anti-national and criminal act to misguide the innocent farmers and jeopardise the food security of the country,” said Lather in his letter Friday, a copy of which is with ThePrint.
(Edited by Richa Mishra)