Why recent moves to reduce water in agriculture will have limited impact

Two initiatives by states to save water in agriculture have had mixed results, suggesting gaps in the broader policy architecture of the National Democratic Alliance’s water conservation efforts. One is the diversion of land towards growing maize, and the other is the promotion of drip irrigation in Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra. Both plans are designed to encourage farmers to divert crops from water-intensive crops such as wheat, rice and sugar.

“Nearly 89 per cent of our water consumption is for agriculture. We have to address this biggest stakeholder to manage our demand for water,” Minister of Jal Shakti, Gajendra Singh Shekhawat told Business Standard. The principal sticking point has been the question of designing incentives for farmers to comply with these new policies as well as aligning them to consumption patterns.

The preference for growing wheat and rice, for instance, is the result of the four-decade-old support price policy, an offshoot of the Green Revolution. This has encouraged even non-traditional areas, such as Punjab and Haryana, to growing rice — one of the heaviest water-guzzling crops. In north India, Haryana, along with Punjab and western Uttar Pradesh, produces almost 26 per cent of the country’s rice production estimated to be over 100 million tonnes. Similarly, state-advised prices for sugarcane, which rise year on year, have resulted in non-traditional water-scarce areas of Maharashtra turning to sugar cultivation.

The experience of Punjab and Haryana with maize cultivation is a good example of the disconnect between policies and markets. In Haryana, at 49,000 hectares more than half the land dedicated to growing non-basmati rice has shifted to maize according to latest data for the current kharif season.  In fact, maize acreage is at a five-year high in Haryana.

Punjab has also seen a rise in acreage under maize (100,000 to 160,000 hectares) and cotton (268,000 to almost 400,000 hectares) alongside a decline in non-basmati rice cultivation.

The principal factor influencing this preference for maize in Haryana has been heavy incentives. Recently, Manohar Lal Khattar’s government offered farmers a subsidy of Rs 2,000 per acre along with the distribution of free maize seeds to farmers, and it has also agreed to bear the insurance premium of those farmers who shift from water-guzzling crops under the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana. The state government has also assured farmers that it will buy all the produce from them.   

In Punjab, a comprehensive policy to encourage a shift in cropping pattern in Punjab is expected to be announced by the end of this year. 

The problem is this. Maize is not a primary consumption item in the daily diets of Indians. So though farmers may grow more of it and state agencies may buy all they produce, these moves are not aligned to the food consumption basket. "How much sweetcorn can a country consume?" one expert asked.  

Indeed, the availability of cheap wheat, rice and sugar through the public distribution system (PDS) has made these commodities principal items of Indians’ daily diet. No amount of conservation will solve the water crisis in agriculture as long as the contribution of water-guzzling crops remains high in Indian diets. 

“The government has to look at alternative crops for people to consume. Through PDS, it successfully converted food habits. Now we need a marketing strategy. Ecologically sensitive practices have to be packaged and sold,” said M V Ramachandrudu, director, Watershed Support Services and Activities Network.

The need to create markets for alternative crops also applies to drip irrigation projects. The UP government has enhanced the subsidy on drip irrigation components to up to 90 per cent for some category of farmers, and Maharashtra has made drip irrigation compulsory for sugarcane farmers.

Farmers suggest that the state needs to extend viable incentives if they are to grow, say, pulses instead of sugarcane. That apart, drip irrigation requires a steady supply of power.  “There is no power supply for drip irrigation,” said farmer leader Raju Shetti, head of Maharashtra’s Swabhimani Shetkari Sanghatana. The issue is emotive enough for Shetti to say “we will not sit quiet if they make drip irrigation compulsory.”

So what’s the solution? Ramachandrudu points to a “combination of some ten solutions,” not all of them water-related.

According to a 2018 study by NABARD and ICRIER, rice, wheat and sugarcane, which together are spread over 85 million ha (about 43 per cent) of total gross cropped area of 198 million ha, consume almost 80 per cent of freshwater available for irrigation in the country.

“Cropping water demand has to be studied. Data does not cover areas properly, as a result of which several over-exploited regions are not demarcated,” said Harshvardhan Dhawan, project manager, Arghyam, an organisation focused on sustainable water use.  

Farmers feel that the push to shift to other crops is a “trial and error” approach by the Narendra Modi government that carries big risks. “Farmers will bear the brunt of this approach. It is understandable if you have a game plan...But think about it: the rate of maize will drop when everyone starts to grow it. What then?” said V M Singh, general secretary of All India Kisan Sabha.

The starting point is working with farmers rather than imposing decisions from above. The community at the ground level has to be involved in budgeting its water resources and driving the movement for sustainable agriculture.  “A community resource person has to understand what it means. He has to participate. And these practices have to be transferred to generations,” Dhawan said.

Drip irrigation is a case in point. Despite its manifest efficacy in water-scarce regions (such as in Gujarat), drip irrigation accounts for just 4 per cent of gross irrigated area, so knowledge of it is limited.  “You have to educate your farmer. They don’t know what drip irrigation is or how it is done,” Singh said.

A report by the Punjab Farmers Commission called for capping the acreage under water-guzzling paddy to 4 hectares for each farmer and lowering the power subsidy on large farmers to ensure diversification towards other crops. While the report is yet to be formally accepted by the state government, farmers are wary of such changes. “A whole generation of farmers does not even know how to cultivate other crops that were being sown before 1960s when the PDS started,” Ramachandrudu said.