Punjab’s Agroclimatic zones

Syllabus: General Studies Paper 1

Context:

Amid talk of MSP guarantee and Punjab’s urgent need to break away from the wheat-paddy cycle, experts feel that the state must follow cropping pattern as per its agro-climatic and soil conditions to protect the environment while increasing farmers’ income.

About the Six Agri Zones of Punjab

• According to Punjab Agriculture University (PAU), Ludhiana, there are six agro-climatic zones in Punjab which include
  • Sub-Mountain Undulating Region,
  • Undulating Plain Region (UPR),
  • Central Plain Region (CPR),
  • Western Plain Region (WPR),
  • Western Region (WR) and
  • Flood Plain Region (FPR).
• These regions have rainfall variations from 165 mm to 2000 mm annually and climate from humid to cold-arid to arid and extreme arid.
• The variations in soil range from hill soils, tarai, brown hill, alluvial to desert.
• In these zones all agro-climatic conditions, rainfall pattern, distribution, soil texture are taken into account to have a suitable cropping pattern.
• Temperatures and humidity levels are also little bit different from each other in all these zones.

What They Offer

• In Zone 1 and 2, mostly kandi belt of the state’s five districts, there are large sub-mountainous tracts along the Shivalik foothills.
  • The temperatures are cold, humid to sub-humid, and semi-arid to humid and the rainfall varies between 165 mm to over 1000 mm.
  • The soil of these areas is suitable to grow vegetables, wheat, maize, basmati sugarcane, jowar, bajra, barley etc.
  • The land in these parts is uneven and semi-hilly, with light and sandy soil that is significantly rain-fed.
  • Growing paddy here is not suitable because it requires continuous standing water for days. That makes maize practically a default crop for farmers here.
• The state has a flood plain region which is also called Bet area which falls across several districts where rivers like Satluj, Beas, Ravi and Gagghar pass and this region falls in the east-west cross section of the state and it has homogenous climatic conditions.
• Farmers prefer to grow paddy here because of the huge requirement of water for this crop.

Forward Plan

• Though as per the climatic conditions we have a cropping pattern for all the six regions of the state, but still the over usage of fertilisers and over exploitation of ground water for decades need for research and development work for modifying this cropping pattern further and having an ideal cropping system to help the farmers growing their incomes.
• The government wants to divide the whole state into zones according to the soil fertility and the respective suitable produce and for that a vision document is being prepared which will be adopted in the state to bring good reforms in the agriculture sector of the state.

The Indian Express link-

https://indianexpress.com/article/explained/punjabs-six-agro-climatic-zones-might-hold-key-to-its-diversification-conundrum-7655281/

Question- Punjab which benefitted the most during green revolution need to break the wheat paddy cycle and diversify crops based on agro-climatic conditions. Explain.