Environmental Impacts of Ground Water Irrigation Economy: A Case Study of Indian Punjab

This paper explores the patterns of input usage and their impact on the ecological sustainability in a ground water driven agricultural set up, for a semi-arid state like Punjab. This paper, apart from highlighting the issue of ground water depletion in the state, which is well documented, focuses mainly on taking stock of the pattern of fertiliser and pesticide usage, and extent of mechanisation in the state, to support a water intensive cropping system, in a water scarce region. We estimate the inefficiencies in utilisation of these important inputs that are leading to a degradation of the state's environment, taking agriculture in the state and its farmers towards doom. We find that the state's agriculture has seen a meteoric rise in the consumption of fertilisers and pesticides since the advent of the Green Revolution, and over mechanisation, because of the perverse policy incentives created to give an initial boost to the adoption of high yielding technology. Based on our primary data of 320 farmers across four districts of Punjab, we also find that there is excessive application of fertilisers and pesticides in the cultivation of wheat and paddy crops to a considerable extent, which can easily be controlled without affecting the yields based on peer-learning of better on-farm management practices.