What are the major factors responsible for making rice-wheat system a success? In spite of this success…

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What are the major factors responsible for making rice-wheat system a success? In spite of this success how has this system become bane in India?

Ghissu Editorial · Accepted Answer

The rice-wheat system succeeded through HYV seeds, assured irrigation, MSP with open-ended procurement and cheap inputs, but the same incentives caused groundwater mining, stubble burning, soil imbalance and monoculture. Punjab draws over 150% of its annual groundwater recharge.

**Introduction**

The rice-wheat system, kharif paddy followed by rabi wheat on the same field, carries most of India's record 357.73 million tonnes of foodgrain (2024-25). Yet the Indo-Gangetic belt that made India self-sufficient is now where its water, soil and air crises are sharpest.

**Factors Behind the Rice-Wheat Success**

1. **Seeds and water**: Borlaug's dwarf wheats, adapted under M.S. Swaminathan into Kalyan Sona and Sonalika, and IRRI's IR-8 rice met Bhakra canals and cheap-power tubewells in Punjab and Haryana.
2. **Price guarantee and support**: MSP from the Agricultural Prices Commission and open-ended FCI procurement, both dating from 1965, plus subsidised urea, credit and Punjab Agricultural University's extension, removed risk for these two crops alone.

**How the Success Became a Bane**

SKETCH: comparison | Rice-Wheat Success vs Bane
a: Success factor
b: Bane it bred
- Free power, tubewells :: Water table collapse
- Cheap urea :: Skewed soil nutrients
- Assured MSP :: Monoculture, surpluses
- Combine harvesters :: Stubble burning
- Calorie security :: Hidden hunger

1. **Water and air**: Punjab draws over 150% of its annual groundwater recharge (CGWB), and the 2009 subsoil water law's late transplanting squeezes the window before wheat, driving stubble burning.
2. **Soil, diet and trade**: Urea-heavy dosing depletes zinc and carbon, pulses and millets lose acreage, and rice support exceeded the WTO's 10% de minimis limit, peaking at 15.22% in 2021-22.

**Way Forward**

1. **Diversify and save water**: Haryana's Mera Pani Meri Virasat (₹7,000 an acre to leave paddy), direct seeded rice, Happy Seeder sowing and procurement of pulses under PM-AASHA and of millets for the PDS.

**Conclusion**

Seeds, water, prices and institutions aligned for two crops, and the same unchanged incentives turned success into bane. A water-wise, diversified Indo-Gangetic agriculture is the path to Viksit Bharat 2047.

What are the major factors responsible for making rice-wheat system a success? In spite of this success how has this system become bane in India?

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