The nutrient deficiency, alarming level of degradation of soil, loss of fertility and decline of organic matter quality have become a serious challenge to counter for agriculture experts in Punjab.

Desperate to take maximum output, farmers resort to all kinds of methods to exploit the soil and in the process soil's nutrition and fertility level is hit hard. Farmers use chemicals such as fertilisers to rejuvenate the fatigued soil. This leads to the jacking up of the production cost of foodgrains. In spite of this, the phenomenal rise in the production of various foodgrains between 1960 and 1990 has now slowed down, notwithstanding the use of recommended doses of fertilizer.

"The average yield of wheat is 4.5 tonnes per hectare and of rice 6 tonnes. However, in return, these removed from the soil more than 300 kg of nitrogen, 30 kg of phosphorous and 300 kg of potassium, per hectare" says Dr G.S. Hira, Head of the Department of Soils and Additional Director, Research, of Punjab Agriculture University.

Burning of wheat and rice straw also contributed as much to soil sickness and loss of fertility as to air pollution. Punjab produced 23 million tonnes of rice straw and 17 million tonnes of wheat straw, annually. This straw has rich nitrogen, phosphorous and potassium. It is not recycled but burnt. Instead of burning, if the straw was left in the fields, 0.824 million tonnes of NPK would become available to the soil. This is about 50 per cent of the fertiliser consumption in the state.

"Considering that 90 per cent of rice straw and 30 per cent of wheat straw is available to recycle, it will tantamount to recycle of 0.56 million tonnes of nutrients valued at Rs 400 crore", Dr Hira says.

With an objective of checking and minimising "exploitation" of resources, the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) has sanctioned a Rs 2.6 crore project in "soil and water management" to the PAU. The project will be jointly executed by the Department of Soils, and the Department of Soil and Water Engineering. Principal Investigating Officer of the Project is Dr Hira.

This project in hand is in addition to 55 other ICAR-funded research schemes. Incidentally, the ICAR makes up for 18 per cent of the PAU budget, pegged at Rs 131. 57 crore for 2004-05.

Haryana is no better. Both Punjab and Haryana contribute 82.46 per cent wheat and 44 per cent rice to the Central pool. If soil and water management continued to be handled arbitrarily, its consequences will be disastrous not only for these two states but also for the country.

Wheat and rice are highly fertilizer-intensive crops and sap the soil of its nutrients. Rice is also a water-guzzler and causes severe depletion of underground water.

The alarming situation of exploitation of groundwater is evident from the fact that 100 blocks out of 141 are categorised "dark" in the central districts, Kapurthala, Jalandhar, Ludhiana, Patiala, Sangrur and Moga, where water table is declining at the rate of 54 cm per year. At 75 cm per year, this fall was steep in 2004-05.