Punjab: Paddy yield drops by 3 quintals per hectare

Punjab: Thousands of farmers, already struggling to get their paddy procured, have suffered another setback – low yield. Though the experiments on paddy are still on, information gathered by The Tribune from the agriculture department shows that the crop yield has dropped from 67 quintals to 64 quintals per hectare. This means that the average farmer will lose about Rs 6,960 per hectare. “The final report of the crop cutting experiment will come only after a fortnight. But we have observed a decline of three quintals per hectare in the yield, mainly due to climate change,” Jaswant Singh, director of agriculture, Punjab, told The Tribune. Kirti Kisan Union leader Raminder Singh Patiala said the crop yield has declined by up to four quintals in many places. So far, 75.82 lakh metric tonnes (LMT) of paddy has arrived in the mandis (out of a total expected 185 LMT). Harvesting is still on in most parts of the Malwa region. As harvesting was delayed due to lack of procurement in the first three weeks of the month, farmers say this also led to a drop in crop yield. According to information available with The Tribune, out of the total 32.43 lakh hectare area under paddy this year, 6.80 lakh hectare is under Basmati varieties. Of the remaining area, 40 per cent is under PR 126 (over 10 lakh hectare) and 1-1.50 lakh hectare under hybrid varieties. Farmer unions under the aegis of Samyukt Kisan Morcha today staged protests outside the offices of deputy commissioners, where they alleged that farmers who had grown PR 126 and hybrid paddy varieties were forced to sell to rice mills at prices lower than the MSP of Rs 2,320 per quintal. In areas of Pudh region, where farmers mostly grow hybrid paddy, offtake is still slow and farmers here allege that they were forced to sell paddy at prices as low as Rs 200 per quintal below the MSP. Sources among the commission agents, rice millers and agriculture experts say that most millers are refusing to mill these varieties because farmers have grown PR 126 on a part of their land and the hybrid variety on another part. When they harvested the crop, they mixed both the paddy varieties. “As a result, milling these varieties will cause us losses as breakage will be high and the production ratio will be less than the prescribed 67 per cent,” said Bharat Bhushan Binta, president of the Punjab Rice Industries Association. However, the ruling Aam Aadmi Party has denied that there has been any distress sale of paddy or that the state government has any fault in the entire matter. “The Punjab government has been writing to the FCI since March to move the grain purchased in previous years out of the state. However, the Centre did not take any action because they wanted to bring Punjab farmers and the AAP government to their knees. But the state government is standing with the farmers, commission agents and rice millers,” said AAP MP Malvinder Singh Kang.