Agricultural Sustainability in Punjab: A Way Forward

Punjab is an agriculturally strategic state of India. However, its agricultural sector is currently passing through a critical phase where the natural resources are depleting, yields are stagnating, and farm incomes are falling. A continued reliance on wheat and rice (paddy) production and overdependence on underground water resources have raised questions about the sustainability of agriculture in Punjab. The current cropping patterns, which are heavily dependent on wheat and rice, are highly intensive with low diversity potentially undermining overall agricultural sustainability of the state. A reduced crop diversity mainly in the kharif season with a focus on rice intensification and a regime of free-of-cost electricity supply to farm sector have had an adverse effect on groundwater resources while an overdose of fertilizers and pesticides and over-capitalized farm machinery have undermined the economic sustainability of Punjab’s farm enterprises. From a policy perspective, crop diversification policies in Punjab need to be more practical and pragmatic providing alternative sets of crops to farmers which can economically complete with wheat and rice. Like Haryana, Punjab government can rationalize rice cultivation and/or disseminate alternative methods of rice cultivation avoiding flood irrigation in the central zone where groundwater depletion rates are very high. In the post COVID-19 phase, Punjab government might consider promoting rural agribusiness, i.e. food processing, fine-tuning the current agricultural marketing systems, and rationalizing the current regime of electricity subsidy to farm sector to improve the overall agricultural sustainability in Punjab.