GS3 PYQ (Mains Answer Writing): Rice - Wheat System | Environment for UPSC CSE PDF Download

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? (UPSC MAINS GS3 )

The rice-wheat rotation is the principal cropping system in south Asian countries that occupies about 13.5 million hectares in the Indo-Gangetic Plains of which 10 million hectares are in India. This system covers about 33% of the total rice area and 42% of the total wheat area and account for one quarter to one third of the total rice and wheat production. This cropping system is dominant in most Indian states, such as Punjab, Haryana, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh, and contributes to 75% of the national food grain production.
Major factors responsible for making rice-wheat system a success: 

• Although this is an irrigated cropping system yet yield are dependent on climatic situation in India mainly on south west monsoon. 
• Green fodder is easily available in rice-wheat cropping system and this in turns helps to support large livestock population. 
• With the introduction of improved high yielding, input responsive, short duration rice and wheat varieties, the rice-wheat pattern became feasible and saw both crops grown in the same year. 
• In this pattern, rice is grown during the summer months followed by wheat in the winter months. It is now found as a major system throughout the IGP. Both crops are grown in one calendar year. 
• The environmental requirements for the growth and development of both rice and wheat crops are contrastingly different. Rice grows best under stagnant water conditions, while wheat requires a well-pulverized soil with a proper balance of moisture, air and thermal regime. 
• A dominating feature of the rice-wheat cropping system is the annual conversion of soil from aerobic to anaerobic and then back to aerobic conditions. 
• This post green revolution technology will depend on farmer adoption and investment. Increasing and improving stakeholder participation in experimentation and fine-tuning of the technology will be a key to success. 
• Irrigation is a common feature of this system either from extensive surface canal systems or from shallow wells and tube wells .Rainfed rice-wheat also exists, but the majority of farmers apply at least one irrigation for wheat and many a full irrigation schedule. Issues related to Rice-wheat cropping system. 
• Declining underground water table: The excessive pumping of ground water for irrigation purposes in intensively cultivated areas of Punjab, Haryana and Western Uttar Pradesh has caused lowering down of the ground water table in certain pockets. Declining water tables not only raise production costs due to higher energy requirements for pumping water from greater depths but such rapid rates of decline spark serious questions about the long-term sustainability of rice-wheat system itself in these areas. 
• Diverse weed flora: Diverse weed flora and excessive weed pressure is an important issue in the way to sustainable agriculture. Due to intensive cultivation of rice–wheat sequence, the weed flora simplified with grasses. Weeds compete with the main plants for light, water and nutrients and in turn decrease overall land productivity of the system as a whole. 
• Ground water pollution: Excessive use of the fertilizers/insecticides in RWCs pollutes the underground water quality. Application of this poor quality water to the agricultural and dairy sector leads to emergence of several severe diseases in animals and decreased the grain quality which ultimately affect the human health. 
• Outbreak of diseases and insect-pest: Both wheat and rice crops are grown under lavish environment. The green crops with higher dose of N-fertilizers and wet conditions because of frequent irrigations are the paradise for the outbreak of insect-pest and diseases. 
• Degrading soil structure: Rice is conventionally established through tillage under wet conditions with an aim of reducing percolation losses, ease transplanting and suppress weeds. However, its negative effects through structural degradation on upland crops are of concern. Apart from extensive labour requirement repeated puddling of coarse and medium textured soils in the state has led to the sub-surface compaction which has been proving detrimental for the upland crops like wheat. 
• Unsustainable practices: Slow agricultural growth is emerging as a concern for government and policymakers as two-thirds of India’s people depend on rural employment for a living. The current adopted agricultural practices are neither economically nor environmentally sustainable. 
• Residue management: On farm residue management be the major issue in the prevailing RWCS. Among rice and wheat straw residue, wheat residue is used in the animal husbandry sector butthe higher silica content in rice straw make it inappropriate to be used in the dairy sector. Also farmers generally burnt the rice residue on to their fields to get rid of it and to ensure timely sowing of the wheat crop as delayed sowing decreases the final grain yields. 
• Labour shortage: Rice–wheat cropping system is water-, energy-, capital- and most importantly labour intensive as transplanting, spraying and harvesting of paddy require intense labour. Labour shortage is an emerging issue in the prevailing Rice- wheat cropping system(RWCS) due to narrow window period and legal binding to transplant paddy. 
• Rice-wheat cropping system is known for plenty of methane generation and its contribution to global warming. 

Conclusion 
Rice-wheat cropping system in India has contributed immensely to fill the increasing empty stomachs but has consequently led to many sustainability issues. Hence, alternate tillage and establishment methods must be invented, tested and recommended for the sustainable establishment of rice–wheat cropping system as a whole including the intervening period so that land and water productivity, soil health and environment must be improved for overall lifting of the livelihoods of the farmers. 

Topics Covered - Rice Cropping System