Punjab set to face paddy procurement crisis again

Punjab is set to witness a repeat of the paddy procurement crisis during this kharif marketing season. Just like last year, the rice millers in the state have declared that they will not mill the hybrid varieties of paddy, even as the Punjab and Haryana High Court quashed the state government’s blanket ban on such varieties yesterday.

“The farmers will be impacted as rice millers will not mill these varieties. Why should we suffer? The outturn ratio of paddy is 66 per cent, but the broken rice in hybrid varieties is 43-45 per cent. So, millers have to buy rice from the market at their own cost and give the 66 per cent milled rice to the government,” Ranjit Singh Josan, vice-president of Punjab Rice Millers Industry told The Tribune.

It was under pressure from the state’s rice milling industry that the Punjab government had imposed a ban on the use of hybrid seeds — both notified and non-notified. Last year, the rice millers had refused to mill the hybrid paddy and PUSA 44 varieties, saying that these varieties had a much higher percentage of broken grains during milling, as compared to the other paddy varieties.

It was after nearly a month-long standoff between the farmers, the government and the rice industry that the millers agreed to mill the hybrid paddy varieties, after imposing cuts on the price paid to farmers cultivating these varieties.

This year, 32.49 lakh hectares of land is under paddy cultivation, of which 6.81 lakh hectares is under basmati varieties. Official sources told The Tribune that though the hybrid varieties had been banned, farmers continued to grow these. In Majha, the area under hybrid varieties has gone up substantially, mainly because hybrid varieties offer higher yields to farmers.

Yesterday, the Punjab and Haryana High Court set aside the state government’s order of April 7, which had imposed a blanket ban on the use of hybrid paddy seeds in the state. The court said the order does not withstand the test of legality, as the state could not prohibit the use of varieties duly notified by the Government of India under the Seeds Act of 1966.

The court upheld the administrative orders of April 4 and April 10, 2019, which had restricted the use of non-notified hybrid seeds while permitting the notified varieties.

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