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The monsoon has reached many parts of the country but farmers in Punjab and Haryana are still waiting for the downpour to fill their paddy fields.
Information provided by the meteorological department says that the rainfall deficit has been 59 per cent in Punjab and 55 per cent in Haryana.
Farmers' contribution from Punjab and Haryana contribute the most to the central pool during food procurement. But rainfall has been scanty and inconsistent. Irrigating the fields makes it unviable as the cost of diesel (tube wells operate on generators) has risen in the past few years.
Jagtar Singh Brar, a farmer at village Teja Mohri (district Bathinda in Punjab), said they received 101 mm of rainfall in a month but it should ideally have been 250 mm.
Due to poor rain, the demand for power goes up and this hampers power supply from state utilities. Punjab government offers free power for agriculture use but farmers have to rely on tube wells run on captive power.
A paddy growing farmer earns about Rs 50,000 an acre. Those who take land on lease pay Rs 40,000 an acre as lease money.
Farmers are spending Rs 6,000 to Rs 7,000 an acre as additional cost to save crops due to the inadequate rains.
The minimum support price (MSP) of paddy is Rs 1,400 a quintal this year. There was an increase of Rs 50 this year.
If a farmer gets a yield of 25 quintal per hectare, he might get an additional income of Rs 1,250 an acre this year. But the additional costs would increase by four times due to the extra spending on irrigation, said Himmat Singh, a farmer, of Sangrur.
The dwindling water table in the two states (because of over exploitation of underground water) has added to the woes of the farmers. The cost of extracting sub-soil water has also increased.
