Gurugram: Haryana is already giving incentives to farmers for cultivation of paddy using the direct seeded rice technique that saves water, as well as for diversifying to other crops, according to state agriculture minister J.P. Dalal.
“Under the scheme ‘Mera Pani, Meri Virasat’, the Haryana government is paying Rs 7,000 per acre to farmers for sowing crops other than paddy. Last year, more than one lakh farmers availed benefits under this scheme. This year’s figures are not currently available,” Dalal told ThePrint Wednesday. “Similarly, the government is paying an incentive of Rs 4,000 per acre for direct sowing of rice. Nearly 2.5 lakh farmers applied for benefits under the scheme this year.”
His comments come in the aftermath of the Supreme Court suggesting that paddy wasn’t the native crop of Punjab and its cultivation must be phased out from the state as well as from neighbouring Haryana, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and Delhi in favour of less water-guzzling crops
Farmers and agriculture experts, however, say that both Haryana and Punjab have, over the years, emerged as the Basmati bowl of the country, and paddy-cultivation is the norm for these states and won’t be easy to phase out.
Agriculture experts also maintain that the issue of stubble-burning, which is said to be leading to pollution in north India every autumn, can be managed without phasing out paddy.
Farmers have been burning rice stubble in October-November every year to quickly prepare their fields for the wheat crop, after the paddy crop cycle was shifted under a law to conserve water in both Punjab and Haryana.
Taking up a plea on pollution in Delhi-NCR, the Supreme Court Tuesday said that stubble-burning was a “significant” contributor towards air pollution and must be stopped by forceful intervention or by incentives.
On Punjab Advocate General Gurminder Singh’s suggestion, the court agreed that paddy should be phased out from the crop pattern of Punjab and other neighbouring states.
Also Read: ‘No other option’ — as its fields turn black & skies smoky, why Punjab won’t stop burning stubble
‘Paddy provides assured yield’
Gurjeet Singh Mann, a progressive farmer from Kirpal Patti village of Haryana’s Sirsa, told ThePrint that the premise that paddy wasn’t a native crop of the region wasn’t valid grounds for phasing out the crop because, in that case, even wheat was unknown to the region.
“Haryana and Punjab comprise the Basmati belt of the country today with rice being exported to several countries. Wheat as well as paddy came to the region as a result of the green revolution and both these crops have ameliorated the condition of farmers to a large extent,” he said.
Talking about the prospects from other crops, he explained: “Today, sugarcane is the most remunerative cash crop but it cannot be grown everywhere because of climatic conditions and distance from sugar mills. There is no other kharif crop except paddy that can provide farmers with an assured yield without fluctuation in price. All other crops like maize, cotton, sunflower, mustard and soya have a lot of fluctuation in price and yield because of several factors. On the contrary, paddy provides remunerative returns of nearly Rs 1 lakh per acre.”
Kharif crops are sown in June-July and harvested in October-November.
Mann asserted that unless the government provided incentives not just for sowing but also marketing alternative crops, the farmers had no option but to continue with cultivation of paddy.
Virender Singh Lather, a former principal scientist at Indian Council of Agriculture Research (ICAR), told ThePrint that phasing out paddy was easier said than done as the crop was being grown on 70 percent of the land in Punjab and 50 percent of the land in Haryana in the kharif season.
He added that, according to the Commission for Agriculture Costs and Prices, wheat and paddy cropping pattern was the second most rewarding for farmers after sugarcane.
“During the current kharif season (2023), paddy is cultivated on about 48 lakh hectare in Punjab and Haryana, of which about 14 lakh hectare is covered under Basmati. The paddy straws of these are generally used as fodder by farmers. The remaining 34 lakh hectare of paddy is the coarse-grain varieties, locally known as Parmal varieties. The Parmal straw is not used as fodder but has been disposed of by burning for ages, which causes air pollution,” said Lather.
According to him, the government’s efforts in the last decade have been focused on off-site management of paddy stubble.
But, he claimed, the method was not farmer-friendly and had nearly failed.
“Farmers quickly dispose of their paddy stubble due to the short window available to them between harvesting of paddy crop and sowing of the next crop. Maximum incidences of stubble-burning are reported only after 30 October,” said Lather.
A strategy
Lather suggested a four-pronged strategy to not only stop stubble-burning but also conserve water, which involves the adoption of short-duration paddy varieties with direct seeding of rice (DSR) and in-situ (within-field) management of the paddy stubble.
Explaining the strategy, Lather said farmers could first, adopt short-duration rice varieties like PR-126 and PB-1509; second, adopt the DSR technique where sowing is started from 15 May, rather than the transplantation method where sowing is not allowed before 15 June; third, prepone paddy procurement to 15 September with closure on 10 October; and last, bury stubble in the soil by deep-ploughing method.
“If harvesting ends by the end of September, farmers will get a window of 50 days for sowing the next rabi crop. Preponing of procurement dates will stop farmers from sowing long-duration varieties by transplantation method as they won’t be able to sell their crop in the market,” he said.
“Deep ploughing, which is 10 to 12 inches deep as against top-layer ploughing which is 2 to 4 inches deep, will help farmers bury the stubble deep and sow their rabi crop on the top layer,” he added.
“The only problem is that one needs 50 horsepower (HP) tractors for deep ploughing while farmers mostly have 20 to 25 HP tractors. However, by paying Rs 1,000 per acre to farmers, which the Haryana government is already offering as incentive for not burning paddy stubble, the issue can be taken care of,” said Lather.
Lather told ThePrint that he had emailed his suggestions to the Haryana agriculture department and the central government.
Bharat Kadyan, a progressive farmer from Karnal who has fields in Mirgahan village of the district, said he had been successfully using the DSR technique for sowing paddy since 2006 and deep ploughing for in-situ management of paddy stubble since 2016.
“I started sowing paddy with the DSR technique under a project funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation around 2006. Since 2016, I have been doing in-situ management of paddy straw. All this has helped me save water as well as avoid pollution. Under in-situ management, paddy straw is mulched on the field and then buried deep in the soil. This has also improved the health of my soil over the years,” he said.
(Edited by Nida Fatima Siddiqui)
Also Read: In Punjab’s paddy fields, farmers hail a new low-cost, high-yield rice varieties ‘revolution’