Theme-III-1-Agriculture diversification for sustainable groundwater use - A case study in the Mogo district of Punjab (India)

Abstract

This paper assesses water depletion of agricultural production in the Moga district of the State of Punjab. It particularly focuses on growth in agricultural production and stress on water resources induced by groundwater irrigation. Rice, wheat and forage crops comprise more than 99% of the annual cropped area in Moga. Groundwater contribution to the total annual consumptive water use (CWU)-94% of 1,461 million m3 —is so large that groundwater embedded in the production surpluses of rice, wheat and milk alone exceeds the estimated groundwater recharge in the District. The groundwater CWU in rice production is 1.7 to 2 times higher than those of milk and wheat, and the financial value of the output of rice-wheat-milk production system is 10 and 27% lower than that of the milk-wheat and milk-only production systems respectively. Thus, the intensification of dairy production with a calculated reduction in rice area and increase in green fodder area is the most expedient way of reducing water depletion. It can not only bring the groundwater depletion to sustainable limits, but also increase the value of total agriculture production, while producing a surplus of rice for export. The optimum combination is to change annual cropping pattern of rice, wheat and fodder crops to 62, 90, and 42% of the net irrigated area from the present level of about 90, 90 and 20% respectively, and double the lactating dairy animals to 8 per 6 ha of land.