Surinder Sud: Another Green Revolution in Punjab

FARM VIEW

Agriculture in Punjab may be passing through a bad patch now, but its resurgence does not seem to be too far away. It has already been widely realised that government-supported wheat-rice production system that had brought prosperity in the past is neither economically viable anymore "" nor ecologically sustainable "" and that it has to give way to business-oriented agriculture. This alone can restore the returns from farming to the level the state's farmers have got used to. The present farming system has led to several untoward consequences, such as over-exploitation of water, declining soil health, excessive mechanisation and ever-swelling debt burden of farm households.

Significantly, the strategies for farm recovery are being planned by none other than the Ludhiana-based Punjab Agricultural University (PAU) that had earlier introduced wheat-rice farming to bring about the Green Revolution. In fact, the dwindling R&D backing from PAU has been among the major factors for the current stagnation in the state's farm sector. This, in turn, was largely due to the inadequate financial support to PAU by the state government.

However, though the university is still beset with a resource crunch (90 per cent of its budget being gobbled up by salaries), it has managed to conceive ways and means to cope with it and go ahead to nurse the state's agriculture back to health. The mantra mooted by Vice-Chancellor KS Aulakh for this purpose involves diversification of the cropping pattern to high-value crops and promoting agro-processing industry with private sector's involvement. Besides, private investment is proposed to be sought also for intensifying research on new sectors like biotechnology to breed hybrid and transgenic crop varieties capable of withstanding yield-reducing stresses like drought and salinity and the attack of pests and diseases.

The main advantage of this strategy is that it will help add value to farm produce, boost farmers' income and, at the same time, take care of many of the ecological concerns. This apart, it will result in the creation of additional jobs in the non-farm rural sector and enable industrial houses to prosper, thanks to the availability of the desired quality of raw material for value-addition and marketing in domestic and export markets. The industry will get the need-based technological support from PAU by sponsoring relevant research projects rather than spending on building their own research and development infrastructure.

According to PAU's Director (Research), BS Dhillon, 10 projects have already been identified for implementation with private sector's involvement. The university has also identified the industrial houses that might be interested in collaborating in these ventures.

The selected projects include those aimed at strengthening research for processing of important fruits and vegetables as also aromatic and medicinal plants. Of these, one relates to the development of health foods and drinks. The others relate to areas like bio-diesel production, rearing of buffaloes for producing fresh and processed meat and enhancing the marketing and export potential of basmati rice and durum wheat.

Punjab can easily raise the output of vegetables like tomato, pea, chili and okra, and fruits like kinnow and guava for industrial processing. PAU is seeking funding support to develop the necessary technology for this purpose, including breeding high-yielding varieties suited specifically for processing and value-addition.

University experts feel that health foods can be produced advantageously by blending dark-coloured fruit juices like that of pomegranate, mango and plums with low-flavoured and low-value juices from grapes and pears. These can be further supplemented by utilising herbal plants like tulsi, pudina and other aromatic and medicinal plants. The state is capable of producing more honey to support units making traditional health supplements like Chavanprash and other honey-based products.

A novel concept being promoted by PAU to tacitly introduce crop diversification even while improving income and reducing expenses relates to the organic farming-based kitchen gardens attached to farm households. These are modeled in such a way that the farm family will meet the bulk of its requirement of staple food, pulses, vegetables, fruits, cooking oil and others through the kitchen gardens without having to buy them from the market. The surplus produce could be sold to earn additional income. Being organically produced, this stuff can be expected to fetch better prices.