In the last few decades, the negative fallout of the green revolution of the 1960s in Punjab has been continually highlighted in reports of sick soil, declining yields. A new report by Greenpeace blames government apathy for the state of affairs.

“Punjab, which is suffering from indiscriminate chemical fertiliser usage has not even spent a single rupee for the last three years (2007-2010) on organic/biofertiliser component on Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojana (RKVY) scheme,” says the report released on Thursday.

Out of seventeen components of development in agriculture as listed in the RKVY scheme, only one is linked to promotion of organic fertilisers.

Punjab is major agriculture producing states which produces 20 per cent of India’s wheat, 12 per cent of its rice, and 13 per cent of cotton. The over use of chemical fertilisers in farms has left the state's soil sick and depleted.  

“The central schemes are highly skewed towards chemical fertilisers and there is hardly any support for ecological fertilisation,” the report held.

“The Union Government spent Rs 49,980 crore during 2009-10 to promote chemical fertilisers, the total amount spent on the other flagship schemes that has components to promote ecological fertilisation is only Rs 5,374.72 crore, almost one tenth of the amount spent on chemical fertilisers,” it added.

Greenpeace questions the government spending meagre amounts on ecological fertilisation despite its study saying that 98 percent of the surveyed farmers were ready to use organic fertilisers if these are subsidized and made easily available.

The study titled ‘Of Soils, Subsidies and Survival’ is based on social audit of 1,000 farmers of selected five districts of five states (Assam, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Orissa and Punjab). The survey was done from July to November, 2010. 

The report also mentioned that only one percent of farmers surveyed received any kind of government support for practicing ecological fertilisation.

“The soil is in very poor health but we have not yet reached the stage where we have lost it completely,” Greenpeace India campaigner and co-author of the report, Gopikrishna SR said.

The report pointed out that impact of government’s policy of neglecting ecological fertilisation is posing a threat to soil health and future food security of the country. “A majority (88 percent) attributed the loss of living organisms from their soils to a chemical-intensive mode of farming.”

The report noted that the Nutrient Based Subsidy (NBS) policy launched by the government in April 2010 only supports chemical fertilisers.

“We want a National Ecological Fertilisation Mission by the government,” said Dr O.P. Rupela, veteran scientist and co-author of the report.

In a meeting last month with the finance minister Pranab Mukherjee's pre-budget consultation, Greenpeace had demanded a “Green Budget” for the country in its presentation to the finance ministry. The lone environmental NGO in the meeting made pitch for high government allocation for practicing ecological fertilisation.

“We hope that the government will take note of the situation and allocate sufficient funds in the budget for the promotion of ecological fertilisation and also make provision for the same in the Twelfth Five Year Plan as well,” demanded Gopikrishna.