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| Surinder Sud: A different drought |
| Surinder Sud / New Delhi Aug 25, 2009, 00:46 IST |
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To cope with an unusual drought this year, what’s needed is a fresh approach involving a change in cropping pattern.
In many ways, this year’s drought is not a typical drought. Unlike on previous occasions, when the areas affected were usually in the known drought-prone zones, this year, unconventional tracts have been hit harder.
The paucity of rain is higher either in the traditionally flood-prone and high-rainfall regions, like the north-eastern states, Jharkhand, parts of Bihar and Himachal Pradesh, or in the irrigated tracts, such as Punjab, Haryana, west Uttar Pradesh and parts of Andhra Pradesh.
The stress caused by this year’s drought, therefore, is that of a different nature when compared to the one that has been caused by drought in the previous years. It is, therefore, not fully covered under the present drought code that owes its origin to the great Bengal famine of early last century. Though the rainfall has been both deficient and erratic in the country’s key north-western agricultural belt, the area cannot be declared drought-hit because the crop loss may not be as high (thanks to irrigation) as what is needed to qualify for drought relief under the present drought manual, points out National Rainfed Area Authority (NRAA) chief J S Samra. A similar situation prevails in parts of Andhra Pradesh and in some other states.
Most state governments in these areas are buying additional electricity from the spot market at high rates to augment supplies to the farm sector. Despite this, rural demand is not being fully met. Farmers have to use diesel to operate water pumps for longer hours. The sale of diesel in Punjab, for instance, has surged by 40 per cent this season.
Moreover, the increased extraction of ground water to save the crops will lower the water table and render about 10 to 15 per cent of the tubewells dry. Farmers will have to deepen the wells and install submersible pumps at a very high cost.
Besides, the insufficient rain this year has been accompanied by high temperatures which have adversely affected the livestock besides the crops. The temperature has generally hovered 5-6 degrees Celsius above normal, causing a medical disorder among cattle, especially in the high milk-yielding cross-bred animals, which reduces their feed intake with consequential reduction in milk output.
The combination of aridity and high temperature has caused damage to citrus plants in Andhra Pradesh which may take several years to recover. It has also caused fodder scarcity in several areas, including in Himachal Pradesh where the early sown maize (meant for grain and fodder purposes) had failed.
The state governments want farmers’ and their own losses and additional expenses to be reimbursed by the Centre, and justifiably so. The rice produced in these states is not for local consumption but largely for the centralised grain pool that feeds the whole country, they argue.
Such compensation will require an out-of-the box approach and not a drought code-based conventional approach directed towards dealing with drought, feels Samra.
He also recommends a short- term strategy to mitigate the impact of drought and redeem part of the losses, and a long-term strategy for capacity-building to withstand recurring droughts without much deprivation.
In the shorter run, there is a need for capitalising on the available opportunities for maximising crop output in areas with good rainfall and compensatory production in areas that are adversely hit by drought.
Since the rains have revived from mid-August onwards, conditions are turning favourable for raising short-duration crops, such as toria (oilseed), to offset the loss in crop output. It may also facilitate earlier and larger plantings of rabi crops to partly compensate for the kharif crop losses.
Promotion of Boro rice cultivation (post-kharif and pre-rabi crop) in the eastern region can help make up for the loss in kharif paddy output there. But this will involve additional costs on irrigating the crop.
In the longer run, the strategy should be to shift the cultivation of high water-requiring crops like paddy and sugarcane from Punjab, Haryana and west Uttar Pradesh to high rainfall and water-rich areas like the north-east and parts of the south. Diversification of crops is also needed so that all the crops do not fail simultaneously in any region.
This essentially requires ‘crop zoning’, that involves the identification of areas suitable for different specific crops and promoting those crops there. Agro-ecological conditions, notably the land and water resources, should determine the cropping pattern. These zones should also be provided with crop-specific post-harvest marketing and other facilities. This will help stabilise farm production irrespective of the performance of the monsoon.
surinder.sud@gmail.com
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