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Changing Face of Crop Production In Punjab

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After a year after the war with Pakistan, India faced a daunting food insecurity in 1966 made worse by failing monsoons. India had to import 10 million tones of wheat from USA .India also imported 18,000 tonne of wheat seed from Mexico, high yielding varieties of the grain.

2.5 lakh bags of 10 kg each were transported by road to Punjab and distributed before the rabi season of 1967. Two Spanish varieties, Lermarojo and Sanavra-64, were sown across the state.

In April 1968, farmers reaped a bumper crop of wheat market arrivals leap frogged from three lath tonne to 16 lakh tonne.

This created a revolution. The market was full and schools were shut down so that their buildings could be used to store the produce before distribution to food grain deficit states.

The green revolution marked Punjab’s socio-economic transformation, from an impoverished state to the nation’s food basket.

By 1969, the revolution had extended to rice, with the import of IR-8, seeds imported from the Manila-based International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) that raised the paddy yield from one tonne per hectare to 4 tonne.

Punjab became a state where the green revolution saw massive economic growth.

However the tide turned in the mid 80s with stagnant productivity, rising expenses and declining net incomes. The water guzzling paddy, now grown on a shopping 66 lakh acres, had led to an ecological imbalance with the ground water able falling by one metre annually.

Farmers of Punjab peasant is again reinventing farming. This is led by a new crop of enterprising farmers by making a break from traditional crops to low volume and high value crops. Wheat, cotton and paddy are being replaced by with vegetables, fruits and flowers. This is being achieved by combining innovative farming practices with ingenious improvisation and hand on marketing,

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Tags: crop production, farmer, green revolution, IRRI, punjab, punjab socio economic, wheat