It isn’t always that a variety not officially “recommended” becomes the favourite choice of farmers. This has actually happened with AP-3, a matar (pea or Pisum Sativum) variety that’s practically taken over the entire area under the crop in Punjab — despite not being recommended by either the Punjab Agricultural University (PAU) or the state agriculture department. Balwinder Singh Chhina, chief agricultural officer of Amritsar district, estimates that AP-3 now covers 90 per cent of the total 20,000 hectares area planted to matar in Punjab. “It is not recommended by PAU in Punjab. However, farmers trust it over the PAU’s own varieties,” he points out. The advantage with AP-3 is it gives fruit within 60 days after sowing in September. Farmers, therefore, are able to vacate their field well in time for planting wheat by November-end. The PAU matar varieties, E-6 and E-7, can be sown only in October, while another variety PB-18, even though high-yielding, is also amenable only to late planting. These cannot, hence, fit into the regular wheat sowing cycle. “We have requested PAU to recommend AP-3 for Punjab farmers. However, there is a procedure to be followed of testing the variety before making any such recommendations,” informs Baz Singh, deputy director (horticulture) at Amritsar. The irony is that AP-3 is itself a publicly-bred variety of the Chandra Shekhar Azad University of Agriculture & Technology at Kanpur. But not being “approved” for cultivation in Punjab means farmers here cannot claim any official compensation or relief in the event of any crop failure. Punjab farmers are sourcing the AP-3 seeds from Uttar Pradesh through private distribution channels. That has also meant no regulation as far as prices are concerned. About 45 kg of seeds are used for every acre. While prices of these ranged between Rs 45 to Rs 70 per kg in the last couple of years, they have shot up to Rs 250 in the current season. “There is a shortage of AP-3 seeds this year. Farmers, too, did produce or save seeds from their own crop, as the high market prices received last season promoted them to sell their entire peas, leaving nothing to sow in this season,” notes Chhina. At the same time, the horticulture and agriculture departments do not have enough stocks of the “recommended” pea variety seeds either. “This is blatant exploitation of farmers by market forces. And since PAU and the agriculture department have not make any attempt to develop or multiply better varieties, it has forced farmers to depend on un-recommended seeds sourced through private players,” charges Satnam Singh, president of Jamhoori Kisan Sabha, a farmers’ organisation. According to him, the “monopoly” of a single variety, that too un-recommended, has given free play for private players to increase seed prices and create artificial shortages. “Farmers are paying the price of the Punjab government’s negligence towards developing good pea varieties in the public sector and also failing to regulate seed prices,” he adds.
