Shifting to millets increases groundwater recharge more than drip irrigation in India’s northern plains: Study

Subject: Geography

Section: Economic Geography

Context:

Switching from rice to pearl millet (bajra) and sorghum during the Kharif season and shifting from wheat to sorghum (jowar) in the Rabi season could lower water consumption in the Indo-Gangetic Plains (IGP) by 32 per cent and boost farmers’ profits by 140 per cent, according to a new study.

Details of the study:

Six researchers from the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, University of Delaware, Columbia University and Yale School of the Environment analyzed crop shifting’s prospects in 124 districts of three states: Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and West Bengal- covering the upper, middle and lower Ganga basin in the agricultural belt of India.
Study was conducted for cereal crops (rice, wheat, maize, bajra, sorghum and barley), which cover 52 per cent of the total crop area.
These crops account for 50 per cent of the total water consumption in the three states of the IGP region and contribute a significant fraction of calories for the Indian population.
Around 40 percent of irrigation water used in the Rice-Wheat Cultivation System comes from groundwater sources.

Study findings:

Along with benefits in water consumption and farmers’ incomes, there is an improvement in calorie production by 39 per cent.
There could be 55 per cent and 9 percent water savings in the Kharif and Rabi seasons, respectively, compared with present practices. The increases in profit from the proposed alternatives are 139 per cent and 152 per cent for the Kharif and Rabi seasons, respectively.
Crop switching is much more beneficial vis-a-vis improving irrigation efficiency.
A combination of crop switching and drip irrigation– showed the greatest improvements in net recharge at a district level and reduced groundwater depletion by 78 percent.
Shifting from the rice–wheat system to nutri cereals provides more micronutrients and proteins than rice and wheat.
The findings showed sorghum and bajra are the dominant crops to replace rice and wheat.

Indo-Gangetic plains (IGP):

Stretching from Punjab in the west to West Bengal in the east, IGP is the most populated region in the country, with a population of 400 million people.
Of the country’s total food production, 30 percent comes from these three states, which are a part of a groundwater-dominated food system- cereal production in the IGP.

Source: DownToEarth