Punjab and Haryana were India’s breadbasket and linchpin of its food security, especially after the Green Revolution.
However, over the past two decades, the two states’ combined share of total wheat sourcing for the Central Foodgrain Pool has fallen from 90% or more to just under 70%. The proportion is higher for rice, from 43–44% to 28–29% (chart).
Sourcing diversification – traditionally centered on Punjab and Haryana for wheat and in the two regions of Andhra Pradesh (`) and Tamil Nadu for rice – came with the Green Revolution (the cultivation of high-yielding semi-dwarf crops). varieties) that are spreading to more states and whose governments are also building infrastructure to purchase grain at minimum support prices (MSP) from farmers.
Take wheat, where Madhya Pradesh (MP) briefly overtook Punjab as the main contributor to the Central Pool in 2019/20: this was the crop harvested and marketed in April-June 2020, just after the first Covid lockdown. For rice, Telangana has emerged as the clear No. 2 behind Punjab, with Chhattisgarh, Odisha and Uttar Pradesh (UP) also making impressive, if not less, progress over the past decade (see tables).
But a bad monsoon or a bad harvest can make a difference
This has already been observed in wheat. The last two harvests have not been particularly good due to the unusual rise in temperature in March 2022 and heavy rain in March 2023, both at the time of grain bottling. Low production combined with high market prices (above MSP) caused MP’s wheat sourcing to plummet from almost 13 million tonnes (mt) to 4.6 mt in 2021-22. Although it increased to 7.1 Mt in 2022-23, MP has fallen far behind Punjab. Even more noticeable was the drop in procurement from UP and Rajasthan.
Simply put, the contribution of most states to wheat procurement tended to be high, especially in “fair weather” years when excellent harvests were achieved, such as in the United States. B. 2019-20 and 2020-21. In these two years, the combined share of Punjab and Haryana in procurement dropped to 50-51%. But that proportion has risen to 70-74% in the last two years, reinforcing their status as reliable “all-weather” contributors to national food security.
The above story could play out even more this year
The reason for this is El Niño. Sea surface temperatures in the east-central and east equatorial Pacific off the coasts of Ecuador and Peru are already above average. According to the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, these temperature anomalies, consistent with current “weak” El Niño conditions, are expected to “gradually strengthen” during the winter through December and February.
According to historical data, El Niño is associated with blackout monsoons in India. Subnormal precipitation was recorded in 2014, 2015 and 2018 – and all three were El Niño years. On the other hand, from 2019 to 2022, the country experienced good monsoons for four consecutive years. There was no El Niño during this period in 2019, although there was one of the longest La Niña events ever, lasting from July to September 2020 to December 2020. February 2022-23. The latter – the opposite of El Niño, which brings abnormal cooling of the central and eastern tropical waters of the Pacific – usually brings copious rains to India, as was the case during the most recent episode (https://shorturl.at /imtMW).
During the current southwest monsoon season (June-September), the country has seen rainfall 27.7% below the long-term average from June 1-25. Most global weather agencies had previously predicted that El Niño would not develop until August or later. Its earlier than expected arrival and sudden increase in strength between March and May overshadowed rain for the remainder of the season.
The immediate effects of a sub-normal monsoon would affect the kharif crops, which have only just begun to be planted. Rice can bear the brunt as it is very water intensive and requires at least 25 irrigations in the absence of rain. Additionally, should El Niño strengthen, the impact could spread to Rabi (Winter-Spring) crops as well. These, particularly wheat, are grown using groundwater and dam reservoirs that are recharged/replenished during the monsoon. In other words, a sub-normal monsoon can affect both rice and wheat production.
The Redeemer explains
This is where Punjab and Haryana come into play. These are states whose farmers have secured access to irrigation. In Punjab alone, 31.67 lakh hectares (lh) of rice (rice with husk) was planted in 2022–23, of which 4.94 lh were under Basmati varieties.
Gurvinder Singh, director of Punjab’s Department of Agriculture, sees no decline in rice acreage this year. If anything, it could increase due to the diversion of some acreage from cotton, which has become susceptible to whitefly and pink bollworm pest infestations, in addition to fetching lower prices compared to last year. With Paddy there is no price risk thanks to the guaranteed MSP procurement.
“Even in the event of a bad monsoon, our farmers could secure their crops thanks to the state’s 15 lakh electric tube wells,” Singh said. The Government of Punjab is providing eight hours of uninterrupted free electricity every day to run these tube wells during the four-month rice season (from transplanting to harvesting) starting June 10th.
A Ministry of Agriculture official claimed that rice yields in Punjab actually tend to increase in dry years. Because the farmers are then exclusively dependent on the groundwater and irrigate their fields accordingly. Rather, they fear that the monsoon season will lengthen and that rain will come by harvest time. Even with wheat, the crop failures of the last two years are due to temperature peaks and too much instead of too little rain.
Policymakers and economists have long argued that farmers in Punjab and Haryana should be discouraged from rice and also reduce the acreage planted with wheat. But today, in a scenario of precarious government inventories and global rice prices rising to their highest levels since November 2011, these same farmers could once again play the role of savior.
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