WHEAT, PADDY ROOTS RUN DEEP IN PUNJAB

As Centre proposes purchase of alternative crops at MSP, a look at why Punjab farmers are reluctant to diversify

- SANJEEB MUKHERJEE

A few days ago, a central team of ministers held out a carrot to protesting farmers to break the stalemate in talks.

They proposed to purchase the entire lot of masoor, urad, arhar, maize and cotton over the next five years at minimum support price (MSP) under a contractual agreement.

The purchases will be made through the National Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Federation of India, the National Cooperative Consumers' Federation of India and the Cotton Corporation of India.

And the sellers would be farmers who diversify from wheat and paddy.

Whether the purchases will be limited to just that cohort or extended even to those who have been always cultivating the three pulses, maize and cotton is open to interpretation.

The proposal, according to experts, is directed towards farmers from Punjab and Haryana who are at the forefront of the current agitation that has a cry for MSP at its core.

This, however, is not the first time an attempt is being made to nudge farmers of these two crucial agrarian states from paddy and wheat towards other crops-particularly pulses and maize.

None of the efforts has led to any largescale diversification yet. Paddy and wheat continue to overlay the farmlands of Punjab and Haryana.

"To me, one big reason why farmers of Punjab have so far not shifted from wheat and paddy to any other crop in a big way is that no serious attempts have been made to wean them away from the two," says RS Ghuman, professor of eminence at Amritsar-based Guru Nanak Dev University.

Wheat is a "natural" crop for ab, but the p em lies with paddy, which is not consumed much in the state, he adds.