How diversified was Punjab before the Green Revolution

According to the data compiled by Punjab Agricultural University (PAU), Ludhiana, Punjab was growing wheat on 14 LH in the early 1960s (before the Green revolution) against nearly 35 LH now. An increase of nearly 21 LH was seen under wheat in all these years. Similarly, the rice area – including paddy and basmati – was just 2.27 LH then, against 30-31 LH now. Rice cultivation saw an increase of around 28 LH since the early 1960s. When both these crops have seen an exponential increase in their area, other crops’ area has been marginalised.

Maize and cotton (both Kharif crops) had 3.27 LH and 4.47 LH, respectively, then and now this area has been reduced to nearly 3.65 LH under both crops, including 2.52 LH under cotton. Both are the best alternatives for paddy.

Groundnut (Kharif) used to be grown on around 2.22 LH at the advent of the Green Revolution, but now its area is less than 2,000 hectares. Its area is also taken over by paddy. The sugarcane (whole year crop) area was 1.33 LH which has come down to around 96,000 hectares now.

The area of pulses was 9.17 LH in the early 1960s – including around 8.81 LH under Rabi season pulses-gram and ‘massar’ and the remaining 36,000 hectares under Kharif pulses-‘moong’, ‘mash’ and ‘arhar’ – against around 20,000 hectares under both Rabi and Kharif season pulses now. Though the area under summer ‘moong’ – which was grown on around 95,000 acres this year – has increased, this is sown in March and harvested in June. This is the third crop between Kharif and Rabi season crops and has nothing to do with the diversification except that it adds to the farmers’ income who take three crops in a year instead of two.

Total oilseeds (Rabi and Kharif) used to be grown on 3.99 LH at the time of Green Revolution which was reduced to just 48,000 hectares till a couple of years ago and now the government is pushing to increase its area and this year it is expected that the area under mustard and rapeseed (Rabi) may increase to 70,000 hectares. Barley (Rabi) used to be grown on 67,000 hectares in the past against 7,000-8,000 hectares now. Bajra used to be grown on 2.13 LH against just 1,000 to 2,000 hectares now.

Like summer ‘moong’, sunflower is also a third crop which farmers can grow in March and harvest in June. The area under it used to be 1.03 LH in the mid-1990s, now its area too has drastically fallen to 4,000 to 5,000 hectares. All the reduced areas of Rabi and Kharif seasons have been diverted under only two crops – wheat and paddy – now.

Experts said that increasing wheat area is not that big problem because it just needs to be irrigated 4-5 times during the entire six-month-long duration crop, but the four-month-long duration paddy crops need to be irrigated around 30 times, apart from the rainwater.

They said that Punjab needs to divert at least 1 million hectares from paddy to other Kharif season crops like cotton, maize, groundnut and Kharif pulses (‘arhar’, ‘moong’ and ‘mash’), and the government can give MSP to these alternative crops.

Under wheat, some areas can be reduced to grow mustard to meet the need for edible oils, which India imports from other countries, and Rabi pulses like ‘chana’.

The state contributed 7 lakh tonnes of rice and wheat, including 5.7 lakh tonnes (63.8%) of wheat and 1.3 lakh tonnes (5.2%) of rice, to the central pool in 1966-67 and currently, more than one-fourth of the grain contribution to the central pool is from Punjab, including around 50% wheat (96 lakh tonnes) and around 23% (18 million tonnes) paddy in 2022-23 Rabi and Kharif marketing seasons, respectively.

Last season due to the heat wave wheat grain got shrivelled and the yield had come down to 20% to 25%, otherwise Punjab usually contributed 12 million tonnes to 13 million tonnes to the central pool.

As far as fertiliser consumption is concerned, Punjab was using just 5,000 tonnes earlier and now around 18 lakh tonnes. Punjab had used 4,480 tonnes of pesticides in 1980-81 against 4,900 tonnes now.

For the uninitiated, the Green Revolution refers to the development of high-yielding plant varieties, especially of wheat and rice, that increased food supplies and staved off widespread starvation in developing countries. This revolution changed India’s status from a food-deficient economy to one of the world’s leading agricultural nations. In 1965, India launched this revolution with the help of a geneticist, now known as the father of the Green revolution (India) M S Swaminathan.