Explainer: Why has Pusa-44 paddy variety been banned

The story so far:

Punjab has once again prohibited the sale and sowing of Pusa-44 variety of paddy, besides banning various hybrid varieties for the upcoming kharif marketing season. Seed dealers have been directed not to sell seeds of water-guzzling Pusa-44 variety, to check over-extraction of the groundwater in the state, which now stares at desertification in the coming two decades.

Last year, Pusa-44 variety comprised around 3 per cent of the total area under paddy cultivation in the state. CM Bhagwant Mann had then said that banning Pusa-44 had led to saving electricity worth Rs 477 crore, which would have otherwise been used for running tubewells to extract groundwater.

Why the ban?

Pusa-44 is a long-duration paddy variety that takes 143 days to mature, requiring an additional 50 days of puddling of fields. Even when it is harvested, it has high moisture content (over permissible limit of 17 per cent) and farmers find it difficult to sell it at MSP. It also has high percentage of broken grains and more straw. The state rice milling industry has also banned its hybrid seeds because, it claims, 50 per cent grains get broken during shelling. In other varieties, the percentage of broken grains is much lower, around 25 per cent. Around 5-6 kg of seeds are required for one acre.

What do farmers say?

Farmers in Punjab are not impressed with the ban, as many of them have already sourced the seeds from private seed producers for Rs 100-150 per kg, mostly from Karnal in Haryana, the heart of the paddy cultivation in that state. Last year, too, many Punjab farmers too had already bought Pusa-44 seeds, before the paddy variety was banned. Obviously, this time around as well, the government has not taken farmers into confidence over the reasons for the ban. “They have unnecessarily advanced the date for paddy sowing. If the government is serious about saving groundwater, this should not have been done,” says a farmer from Patiala district.

What do rice millers say?

Ranjit Singh Josan, vice-president of the Rice Millers Association, said the millers are happy that these varieties had been banned. “We hope the government will also see to it that farmers do not sow hybrid varieties or Pusa-44,” he said.

How much was sown last year?

Pusa-44 and hybrid varieties were sown on 5 lakh hectares out of total of 32 lakh hectares under paddy cultivation last year. In 2023, Pusa-44 was sown on 3.86 lakh hectares and in 2022 on 5.67 lakh hectares. Hybrid paddy seeds caught the fancy of farmers last year, with guesstimates suggesting 2 lakh hectares were under cultivation in 2024.

What varieties will farmers grow?

Most farmers claim they will grow PR-126 and PR-131 varieties.

Punjab