The fertiliser addiction of Indian farming is a crisis

Under the soft winter sun, Gurdeep Singh ran a handful of soil through his fingers, watching it crumble all too easily. The 65-year-old farmer from Balbehra village in Punjab’s Patiala district had seen the earth on his five-acre farm change over the decades – from fertile and self-sustaining to now being dependent on chemicals for survival.

“People talk about Punjab’s youth getting addicted to drugs, but no one mentions how our soil has become addicted to chemicals and fertilisers,” he said, looking out at the young wheat sprouting across his plot. Rising costs and declining yields, he explained, were symptoms of this deep-rooted crisis.

Once the poster child for the Green Revolution in the 1960s that resulted in an increased production of grains from 50 million tonnes to over 300 million tonnes in nearly five decades, Punjab faces a silent crisis – soil dependent on fertilisers, pests resistant to chemicals and declining crop yields despite rising input costs.

The problem is not unique to Punjab. Most Indian states face the same problem. This crisis signals a grim future for the country’s agriculture sector, threatening the sustainability of Indian agriculture and imperilling its access to safe and healthy food.

The final part of the three-part series on monoculture of…

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