Water: a binding constraint for agriculture in India

Water is a sine qua non for human existence and its sustained availability is of utmost importance. Increase in water demand due to rapid increase in population, urbanisation and industrialisation is posing a major challenge to the global water resources. India, with its 1.37 billion population, is already reeling under this pressure. Despite being crisscrossed by several rivers and water bodies, many regions across the country are vulnerable to water crisis- a situation defined by water demand exceeding the available water supply. This challenge is further exacerbated in the agriculture sector. The agriculture sector, in addition to providing a source of livelihood for almost 50 percent of India's population, also accounts for 78 percent of the total water used in the country. Most of this is used for the purpose of irrigation. Ergo water productivity in the sector is an absolute necessity for sustainable growth of agriculture in India. Agricultural water management also has crucial poverty linkages. Trends of poverty follow global agricultural productivity patterns and incidences of higher poverty is observed in areas with low agricultural productivity. Improvements in water management aid in alleviating poverty through several pathways-better productivity and production, reducing vulnerability, and impacts on the environment and human health. Efficient management of water resources will require both demand and supply side interventions. Through better demand side interventions and altering the cropping patterns to suit the agro-climatic requirements of the different areas in India, the agriculture sector can better equip itself in managing water use. Overcoming the water crisis will require investigation into the productivity of water use in agriculture across the country. In fact, treating water as a more binding constraint to agriculture than land is one of the prerequisites for efficient demand side management of water use.

Drivers of cropping patterns

As agriculture marketing in India is yet to attain an advanced state, farmers generally look for signals, that would guarantee a steady source of income, in deciding which crop to cultivate. The Minimum Support Price (MSP) regime has acted as a crucial price signal in this regard. These signals often result in practices that are not compatible with agricultural methods suitable to various parts of the country. For example, due to higher MSPs for paddy, farmers across the country have started cultivation of these crops despite agro-climatic conditions favouring other crops. Power and irrigation subsidies have intensified the unfavourable situation. This has been an ecological disaster in many parts of the country- especially the Cauvery basin in Karnataka and Tamil Nadu, and the northwestern region of Punjab and Haryana. These are expectedly also the regions identified as some of the most water stressed in the country. Paddy, according to water requirement estimates of the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), is one of the most water-intensive crops. Area under the cultivation of paddy, along with wheat, accounts for almost 71 percent of the entire area under food grains cultivation in India. At the same time, food grains, comprising of crops like bajra, ragi, arhar, gram, masoor etc., are spread across more than 60 percent of the area under agriculture. Importance of cereals and pulses in the average Indian diet, and state support through MSPs are primary reasons behind the predominance of these crops in the farming hinterlands. Understanding the water productivity of these food grains is also equally important due to the large share of agricultural land that these crops occupy. Are they compatible with the agro-ecological requirements such as water availability in the regions where they are grown? This is an important question that one must ponder upon.

Incorporating demand management

The Composite Water Management Index (CWMI), created by the NITI Aayog, has mapped water management across most Indian states. While it is a useful tool in measuring relative performance of states in managing the water resources, it has failed to look into demand side factors. Water use productivity is a crucial demand side factor in managing water resources. Without efficient utilisation of resources no amount of supply augmentation will be successful in managing the resource sustainably. In a recent study on resource-use efficiency and productivity in the food grain sector in India, we have estimated the economic water productivity (EWP) and physical water productivity (PWP) of some of the major food grains (see figure 1).

Figure 1. Water Productivity of selected food grains

Estimates from our study suggest that paddy is one of the least economically remunerative crops relative to the water used in its cultivation. Implications for paddy are huge in terms of the ecological costs involved. On the flip side, gram, urad and bajra are highly productive in terms of the economic returns to the water used in its cultivation. While some of this may be attributed to the relatively less water requirement of these crops, it nonetheless goes on to prove the inefficient utilisation of water in paddy. Estimates of PWP- a measure of how much water is required to produce a kg of output- resonate the pattern observed for EWP. As evident in the figure, PWP of water in the cultivation of paddy is once again the lowest among the selected crops. While that of gram, urad, and wheat is relatively higher. These figures suggest that in terms of productivity of water in agriculture there exist both 'good practices' and 'bad practices'. Improved management of water resources will require, in conjunction with the agro-climatic conditions, incentives that drive farmers towards producing crops suitable for the regions. Since agriculture is a state subject, it is the imperative of state governments and agencies to effectively manage the water resources- another state subject- towards this goal. The agrarian belts of Punjab, Haryana, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu- which have become the hotspots for water conflicts- should undergo a change in the cropping patterns. Cultivation of some of the less water intensive crops such as coarse cereals and pulses should be encouraged. They will help resolve both agrarian and nutritional distress prevalent in the country. Furthermore, the Eastern region of the country is endowed with the potential and necessary conditions for cultivation of water intensive crops. However, it is observed that despite more availability of water, most of the intra-country transfer of water intensive crops flows from the northwest to the east. This reflects a highly unfavourable scenario of sustainable agriculture practices and lopsided demand management of water resources in the country. As water scarcity is going to adversely impact the livelihoods of hundreds of millions of farming households in the coming future, managing the resource is of paramount importance. The above estimates of water productivity in Indian agriculture should be a yard stick for policy makers in trying to frame the agricultural policy that is aligned with India's Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) towards achieving the holistic objectives enshrined in the Sustainable Development Goals. It will pave the way for better agriculture practices that encompass food and nutritional security, and also better livelihoods for farmers.

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• Water
• India
• NDCs
• NITI Aayog
• SDG
• water demand
• water management

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