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Anju Agnihotri Chaba : Jalandhar, Fri Aug 09 2013 The forests cannot take over farmland, but they can send their trees there. Farmers in Punjab are warming up to agro-forestry as the government sets about efforts to replenish the state’s dwindling green cover. It is under 7 per cent when the minimum required is 20 per cent, and when the National Forest Policy envisages 33 per cent countrywide. “About 83 per cent of Punjab’s area is under crops and as such it cannot be converted into reserve forest. The only alternative is agro-forestry,” says conservator of forests Gurbaj Singh. “Some farmers are doing well in agro-forestry but a larger area needs to be brought under it.” Harjit Singh Dhami of Khun-Khun Khurad village in Hoshiarpur was farming wheat and paddy farming till a decade ago. He found labour and production cost too high and started experimenting with a new option. He first planted eucalyptuses and poplars along the perimeter of his wheat and paddy fields. The returns, when they began to come, encouraged him to expand and he has now dedicated 70 acres in five villages to agro-forestry. He points at neatly lined eucalyptuses on one of his farms, in Hardo Khanpur village, and says every acre can earn him Rs 8 to 10 lakh after seven years while the cost of saplings and maintenance is next to nothing. Compared to other crops, little labour is required. The trees have also improved the quality of his soil, he says. And they are largely pest-free. Agro-forestry need 90 per cent less pesticide, insecticide and fertiliser than paddy does. The water it needs is not even 20 per cent of what paddy consumes; after two or three years the plants survive on rainwater alone. Dhami, who took land on contract for agro-forestry, is looking at crores in seven years after investing a few lakhs. Eucalyptuses harvest in seven years, some other trees in five. One can cut these according to need from the third year of plantation. The demand for timber and plywood from the construction and paper-making industries is huge. “In the third year trees can be used as poles, as filler material in plywood, and as pulp in paper-making,” says Dhami. Harpreet Pal Singh, who is foresting 25 acres at Rahimpur village in Jalandhar district, says the first two years also allow intercropping of wheat and maize. The rainy season is the best for planting, say farmers. The trend started only a few years ago. Punjab has been grappling with a water table gone down, and soil and air pollution due to use of fertiliser, insecticide and pesticide. It is looking at diversification and agro-forestry has emerged as an option. Farmers were initially reluctant but are now taking up small-term (three to four years) and long-term (six to seven years) investment options, says Davinder Singh, who himself has been an agro-forester for decades, long before it became a trend. Singh, who has 16-acre farm at Nainowal Jattan village in Hoshiarpur, is encouraging marginal farmers to take it up. “Because of the good returns, we have been able to motivate a large number of marginal farmers to go for inter-cropping with agro-forestry,” says Hoshiarpur forest officer Dev Raj. “This used to be done by big farmers once. Now marginal farmers are growing trees along with maize, wheat, sugarcane.” Around 70 to 80 per cent of Hoshiarpur’s farmers, mostly marginal, are engaging in agro-forestry along with farming of other crops, he estimates. Sodhi Singh of Sherpur Golind village, Hoshiarpur, grows maize, sugarcane, wheat and paddy besides his poplar and safeda trees. “We rotate the land for farming. After taking the tree crop, we cultivate wheat or paddy on the same land, which gives grains of very good quality as tree cultivation improves the quality of the soil,” he says. “Earlier, rows of trees could be seen only on the sides of the field. Now one can see blocks of trees scattered around the fields in various districts of Punjab,” says Dr Avtar Singh, head of the department of forestry and natural resources at Punjab Agricultural University. “The trees have started moving to farmland, which is a good option under the government’s diversification policy,” he says. He says farmers were overusing pesticides and fertilisers for a higher production of wheat and paddy without thinking of the long-term impacts. Crop diversification through agro-forestry, he says, can be done by systematic growing of trees along with agriculture crops. Continue reading →