ONE TOWN SQUARE: at the intersection of peak oil, climate change, and land use

In the 1960s, faced with ideological competition from the USSR and China and the prospect of starving millions, a loose coalition of scientists, government officials and philanthropists launched a “Green Revolution” in India.

Back then, “green” didn’t mean organic – far from it. It meant growing crops the modern, American way. It meant abandoning traditional food crops such as grains, beans and vegetables in favor of cash crops from high-yield hybrid seeds rather than heritage seeds saved from the farmers’ last harvest. It meant abandoning traditional methods and using tractors instead of oxen and chemical fertilizers instead of cow dung. It meant abandoning reliance on rainwater – the new crops were thirsty, and that thirst was satisfied by tapping virgin aquifers with electric irrigation pumps. The “green revolution” was intended to turn farmers’ fields lush green with crops and farmers’ pockets green with cash.

Today, the Green Revolution is collapsing. The water that supports the “modern” system of agriculture is disappearing as the water table is dropping dramatically, as much as three feet each year. Farmers have had to deepen their wells every few years, first from 10 feet to 20 feet, then to 40 feet, now to more than 200 feet — and water table keeps dropping below their reach. G. S. Kalkat, Director of the Punjab State Farmers Commission, warns the heartland of India’s agriculture could be barren in 10 to 15 years.

As the farmers dig deeper to find groundwater, they have to install ever more powerful – and more expensive – pumps. Farmers are often already deeply in debt and can’t get loans for the pumps from banks, so are forced to turn to borrow money from “unofficial” lenders at usurious rates.

The intensive farming methods are also destroying the soil. The high-yield crops suck up nutrients like nitrogen, phosphorous, iron and manganese, exhausting the soil. Farmers now must use three times as much fertilizer as before, to produce the same amount of crops.

And then there’s the salt. The irrigation waters leave a salt residue, and the accumulating salt is now poisoning the crops.

The “green revolution” that seemed to work miracles is now proving to lead to financial disaster for area farmers. The old style of farming didn’t need cash. The modern system relies on cash at every stage: cash for seeds, cash for fertilizers, cash for tractors and tractor fuel & maintenance, cash for well drilling & irrigation pumps, cash for the electricity to power the pumps. And cash for all of the material things that have made farmers appear prosperous. A study by the Punjab State Council for Science and Technology calls it a “vicious cycle of debt.”

Kalkat says Punjab’s farmers are committing ecological and economic suicide – suicide that has been prompted through national and international policies that encourage farmers to destroy the environment and trap themselves in debt.

UPDATE: 1,500 FARMERS IN INDIA COMMIT SUICIDE

Over 1,500 farmers in an Indian state committed suicide after being driven to debt by crop failure, it was reported today. The agricultural state of Chattisgarh was hit by falling water levels. ”The water level has gone down below 250 feet here. It used to be at 40 feet a few years ago,” Shatrughan Sahu, a villager in one of the districts, told Down To Earth magazine.

“Most of the farmers here are indebted and only God can save the ones who do not have a bore well.” Mr. Sahu lives in a district that recorded 206 farmer suicides last year. Police records for the district add that many deaths occur due to debt and economic distress.