India Switch To Cash Crops Decimating Water Table

by Bharat Dogra

But a quarter century after farmers in large parts of Madhya Pradesh state switched from food to cash crops, it is becoming clear that the prosperity has come at a price.

Grains that helped feed tens of thousands of landless peasants in the region are no longer available, forcing the poor to buy expensive and less nutritious food at market prices.

The new farm irrigation methods are also drying up groundwater in the mainly arid region, which experts warn may soon become unproductive.

According to Madhya Pradesh's latest Human Development Report, which is inspired by similar annual assessments of global progress by the UN Development Program (UNDP), the state has erred in pushing Green Revolution technologies without adequate study of their long-term impacts.

"Any simpleminded attempt at extending the Green Revolution strategy to the hard rock regions like the districts of western Madhya Pradesh is likely to be unsustainable in the long run," notes the report.

Hoshangabad district has been at the center of the sweeping changes in crop patterns and farming techniques in Madhya Pradesh since the 1970s.

Travelling across the Hoshangabad countryside, one can see large farms of soya bean on land that once nourished staple food crops like lentils, coarse cereals, maize and millet.

Soya beans, which are sold for export to large processing factories, became popular because of the high prices they fetched. But now many are questioning the wisdom of completely abandoning traditional crops.

A meeting of farmers and grassroots groups from several parts of the state, which was organized in early February by the India office of the international aid agency Oxfam, revealed divergent views on the issue.

"Why shouldn't we change when we get higher price for a new crop?" asked one of the farmers. "Yesterday, I changed to soya bean, now I hear that a big cigarette company is coming to our area. If tomorrow I get a higher price for tobacco, I'll change to tobacco."

However, all the women present said that staple food crops cannot be neglected.

"It is we women who have to feed the children and family. We know how important it is to protect the food crop," said one.

"If we stop growing food, then we have to buy from the market, where the food is also of inferior quality," she pointed out.

Some of the women said the men never consulted them when they changed over to soya beans.

"If women's voices had been heard, many costly mistakes could have been avoided," said Mukta Srivastava of Oxfam.

According to the State of Food and Agriculture 2000 report of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), "India has attained NSSS (national staples self-sufficiency), yet mass malnutrition remains."

"Indeed, NSSS in India is due not only to the green revolution's success in raising yields and output of rice and wheat, but also to persistent (albeit declining) poverty...partly because the poor cannot afford adequate staples," adds the FAO report.

Besides soya bean, the big farmers here also grow high-yield wheat crops, which need large amounts of water -- not easy to find in the traditionally rain-fed area. So the farmers have sunk tube-wells into the ground to extract water.

Thirty years ago, the state's Devas district did not have a single tube-well. By the early 1990s, it had more than 6,000. In the same period, the number of tube-wells in another district, Dhar, grew from 18 to 13,955 -- leading to a sharp drop in the groundwater level in the area.

According to data collected by 89 groundwater measuring stations in five districts of western Madhya Pradesh, between the mid-1980s and mid-1990s, the water table fell by more than one meter in nearly half of the area.

This happened without any reduction in the amount of rainfall in the area.

"The question needs to be posed whether the agricultural expansion fuelled by extraction of ground water on such a scale is sustainable in a predominantly hard rock region," says the Madhya Pradesh Human Development Report.

"The very foundation of this strategy of tube-well irrigation can have little hope for success in these areas," the report adds.

Jacob Nellithanam, who works with a local grassroots group, has long studied traditional and modern farming methods in these districts.

"The traditional wheat varieties with their deep roots can utilize the soil moisture in a very productive way while the HYVs (high-yield varieties), with their shallow roots, are unable to do so," he explains.

Nellithanam says his studies show that several traditional crops also have high-yield potential. His group is trying to conserve seeds of traditional crop varieties and encourage farmers to start planting them again.