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A farmer is protecting his harvest of the year on the market in Ludhiana

If you look at the fields in Punjab in North-western India, everything seems perfect. Thousands of workers, many from Bengal, harvest the grain with small knives. And in the markets in the towns, big piles of grain are sitting there waiting to be sold.

Punjab is known as being the granary of India, and the hard-working Sikhs have, during the last 30 years, accomplished a 'green revolution' with the primitive Indian agriculture.

But behind the big piles of grain, there is a ticking bomb that is threatenig millions of people whose lives depend on agriculture.

During recent years, the water table in the area has lowered by many metres. The farmers must invest in new modern pumps that go deeper and deeper into the ground to fetch water that is of paramount importance for them if they want to harvest wheat in the spring and rice in autumn.

According to the farmers, the water table decrease is due to warmer weather in Punjab, as well as monsoon rain that comes later in the year and brings less rain. Combined with the farmers' intensive use of ground water, this is a cocktail that will, according to the farmers, transform the state into a desert.
 
 

	Big farmer Bhagwaut Singh has many water pumps

Baljinder Singh and Bhagwaut Singh are two of the farmers in Punjab who have improved the efficency of 'their' agriculture with great success. However, they are experiencing increasing problems getting enough water to irrigate their fields.

Bhagwaut Singh has just invested about €1000 in a new deep-water pump. The old ones were no longer effective.

"Earlier it was not a problem to get enough water. If this trend continues, we will have problems," he says.

His colleague, Baljinder Singh, fears that the state will become a desert. And he is contributing to the problem himself.

"1200 years ago, Rajasthan, which is not far from here, was a green state. Today, it is transformed into a desert. Punjab now risks the same destiny, because the water table is constantly decreasing. When the water will be down to a certain level, we will no longer grow crops here, and Punjab will become a desert," Baljinder Singh says.

At the same time, he realises that his way of farming is also partly causing the problem.

"Because of the late arrival of the monsoon, we are forced to pump up ground water to be able to plant the rice at the right time. Therefore the water table continues to fall. If, on the other hand, we stopped growing rice, our development would turn around. The problem is that we earn more money growing rice than growing wheat. Therefore, we will continue doing this until alternative crops that can be of the same value for us are found ," Baljinder Singh explains.

He remembers how the water table on his land fell from about three metres to thirteen metres today. Baljinder Singh fetches the majority of his income (about €5,000 per year) from the growing of rice. The Indian government is also partly responsible. The fact is that it is the government in Delhi that decides on the price for rice and wheat. And at the moment, farmers are earning 50 percent more growing rice, which is not a natural crop for Punjab.

Consequently, the farmers cannot afford to give up the income supplement they gain cropping rice in order to crop wheat.
 
 

Small farmer Avtar Singh has big problems

The land is pawned

While Baljinder Singh owns so much land that he probably always will be able to feed his family, the future looks darker for Avtar Singh.

The 28-year-old farmer supports his wife, four children and parents with his small lot. He travels regularly to the small market in the town of Ahmedgarh where farmers from the area sell their grain.

Even though the prices are held artificially high by the government, Avtar Singh is far from selling enough grain to keep away his creditors.

"It is becoming more and more difficult to make ends meet. Most of us small farmers have huge debts, and the big farmers are trying to buy our land," Avtar Singh says.

During the last year, Avtar Singh borrowed about €1000 from the bank. As his income from last year's harvest of rice and this year's harvest of wheat will only bring him about €700, there is a hole in his budget.

The bank has security in the land, and if Avtar Singh is not able to pay his debt, he must go to a private pawnshops, where the interest rate is 30 percent.


The wheat harvest failed

At the market in Ahmedgarh, the small farmers are eager to tell us how bad things are.

This year, Avtar Singh's wheat harvest is 25 percent below average. According to Avtar Singh, this is because March was extraordinarily hot and without the usual rain.

The falling water table will also affect Avtar Singh's small farm. In 15 years, he did not buy a single pump to fetch water to irrigate the fields. The pump he owns now will only last a few years longer. After that he will not be able to pump water anymore. But unlike Bhagwaut Singh, he cannot afford a better one.

"In five or six years I believe I'll have to stop and sell my land. I cannot afford to invest in a new pump," Avtar Singh says.

If Avtar Singh sells his land he will be forced to take a job in the industry or as a farm worker. In that situation he will earn a maximum of €2 to €2,5 per day.

If it continues like this, Avtar Singh will share his destiny with the thousands of poor farm workers that are doing manual work for the big Sikh farmers.
 
 

	Water is fetched from 10 metres deep

Farm workers growing poorer

On the fields of Baljinder Singh farm labor is working hard to secure a good income for the big farmer and his family.

Kulwant and her husband Jeel Singh together with their two children have to work during three days - 10 hours a day - to earn in total about €13. In reality the family gets no money but 150 kg of the wheat per acre (4000 sq. metre) they have harvested. When they are not slaving on the land Jeel Singh works as a janitor earning €1 a day.

On the field nearby another family is working. But Surinder Pal and her sister together with their children gets only about €10 – or 100 kg wheat – for three days of work. And eight persons are dependent of this income.

They do not own land. So when they are not doing harvest work for the big farmers they are cleaning vegetables or do other kind of work they can get. Their husbands are not doing harvest work because they are working as carpenters or janitors and earn about €1 a day.

But it is a problem for the poor farm workers to get enough money Surinder Pal tells. And although they earn a modest salary they too can become losers if agriculture in Punjab and India as a whole experiences decline.

"Everything is very expensive so we don’t have enough money. And when the weather is bad we cannot harvest and we get no money. Therefore we are sometimes starving," Surinder Pal tells.


Migrant workers

Also migrant workers from other parts of India are slaving on the fields of the big farmers.

One of them is Raghu Urao, 40 years. He comes from Bihar where he lives with his wife and four children. Even though he works about six months in Punjab every year he is not able to move here with his family.

"I have no house in Punjab. Therefore I cannot move here with my family. Back home in Bihar most people are poor and I have no job. Therefore I travel up here to help with the harvest. I earn €2.5 a day," the small tough worker tells.

But then he has to live in a nine square metres hut where he shares the room with six to seven other workers and a big water pump. The floor that is used for both sleeping and as a kitchen is full of empty containers from different types of pesticides and herbicides.
 
 

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