Crop diversification, which is very much needed, is not getting any success despite the efforts being made for the last 25 years. The use of chemical fertilizers is increasing day by day and the use of urea is being rampant on wheat and paddy.
Speaking at an international conference at Punjab Agricultural University (PAU) last week, the Chief Minister stressed on bringing crop diversification. He said that the responsibility of bringing crop diversification lies with the scientists. Agricultural researchers have not been able to give farmers any such alternatives to paddy and wheat, which are as easy as this crop rotation and can give maximum profit. There is a need to speed up research. The Punjab government and PAU Efforts have been made to reduce the area under paddy-wheat by changing the crop rotation for a long time, but the area under wheat cultivation has increased to 36 lakh hectares and paddy cultivation has started on 32 lakh hectares. There is no need to find an alternative to reduce wheat cultivation, because its water requirement is less and it is also needed for food security. Paddy requires more irrigation than all other crops. In the last decade of this century, the Punjab government had planned to diversify the area under paddy cultivation by increasing the area under other crops including maize, basmati, pulses, oilseed crops, sugarcane, fruits and vegetables. Importance was given to maize, vegetables, horticulture and fruit cultivation. Although special efforts have been made to increase the area under the cultivation of Basmati varieties in the last few years. There is no special scope for increasing the area under other crops. Only a little area can be increased under sugarcane cultivation. Much emphasis was given to the cultivation of maize. This too was met with only marginal success. The area increased only marginally. The water requirement of maize also touches that of paddy. Then the farmers did not get a reasonable price for maize in the market either. Although after many years there has been some improvement in this regard now. The area under vegetable cultivation is also not increasing much. The farmers get a very small share of the price that the consumers pay. Only the middlemen eat the profit. The area under potato cultivation is about half of the total area under vegetable cultivation. Although its price also fluctuates, which sometimes prove beneficial and sometimes detrimental to the farmers. The area under fruit cultivation has increased insignificantly. Due to the lack of cold storage facilities and proper marketing arrangements, the contract system is predominant in fruits. Last year, the producers of kinnow and mangoes in particular got very few contracts, due to which they did not show any enthusiasm in bringing new area under their cultivation. A few years ago, a plan was made for the production and marketing of vegetables by farmers through cooperative societies or government agencies, which was to be implemented with the financial assistance provided by the Center for the cultivation of vegetables by forming clusters around cities like Ludhiana, Jalandhar, Amritsar. In this plan too, the plan to form farmers’ organizations and establish centers, in which the farmers and the government did not show any enthusiasm. As a result, this plan also almost failed and there was no significant increase in the area under vegetable cultivation. Some time ago, the Punjab government had also drawn up a plan to increase flower cultivation, but practically it did not achieve any success. There is no arrangement for marketing of fruits. The plan, which was started by setting up a flower market in Chandigarh, was closed after a short time.
