Gurvinder Singh, a 47-year-old farmer in Gurdaspur, in the Punjab state of Punjab, obtained a $11 000 loan from a private lender to marry his eldest daughter after receiving numerous economic hardships in his home. He used that money to plant 3 acres (1. 2 hectares) of paddy.
He staked his money on aromatic Basmati rice with a high-yielding pearl variety. He would have earned almost 1 million rupees per acre ($11, 400 per 0.4 hectare) if the sale had been successful.
However, Singh’s pearl paddy grains are now submerged in floodwater and sedimentary layers.
“A shocking flood cannot be afforded at this time in my life,” I said. We have lost track, Singh claimed to Al Jazeera. Our debts were supposed to be paid for by this year’s harvest. However, I’m not sure how to start over because this field is now a lake.
After the devastating floods that hit their village earlier this month forced Singh to temporarily leave his home along with his wife and two children. What will I return to?” he inquired.
A “lasting repercussion”
Heavy monsoon rains, flash floods, and swollen rivers have flooded entire villages and wiped out thousands of hectares of farmland in northern Indian states.
The situation in Punjab is particularly grim, with over 35 percent of the population dependent on agriculture. Farmers in this area have experienced one of the worst floods in the last four decades, when large paddy fields were completely submerged just before harvest. In nearly two-thirds of the state’s total area, rice is grown.
Following heavy rains in Jammu and Kashmir and Himachal Pradesh state, India’s Gurdaspur, where Singh lives with his family, has been one of the worst flood-hit areas in the region’s three overflowing rivers, Ravi, Beas, and Sutlej.
In Punjab, at least 51 people have died as a result of floods, and 400 000 more have been forced to flee.
India exports $6 billion worth of basmati from paddy fields, which is a major contributor to Singh’s industry. Only Punjab accounts for 40% of the country’s total production. Pakistan’s Punjab province, which is also submerged in floods, produces almost $900 million in Basmati, making up 90% of the nation’s Basmati output.
More than 450, 000 acres (182, 100 hectares) of farmland in India’s Punjab are estimated to be completely lost to agriculture, almost twice the total area of Mauritius. According to independent agricultural economists, floods could have a five-fold impact after the fact, according to Al Jazeera.
Lakhwinder Singh, director of the Punjabi University’s Center for Development Economics and Innovations Studies, claimed that the farmers’ homes had been washed away and that the crop had completely spoiled.
Farmers in Punjab must start fresh. According to Singh, the government would need a lot of help and investment.
Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), which opposes Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party, has announced a 20 000 Indian rupee ($230) allowance for farmers who lost their crops in the floods. That may not be enough to handle the significant challenges farmers may face in the future, Singh claimed.
The United States has imposed a 50% tariff on New Delhi, which is about 6% of the basmati rice shipped there. India’s agricultural sector, which employs half of its population (the largest in the world), has traditionally been a protectionist country, which has become a sticking point in trade negotiations with US President Donald Trump.
Singh cautioned India’s government against leveraging the floods’ impact to liberalize its importation policy. He argued that the government shouldn’t “push the farmers under the bus” to lower tariffs and negotiate with Trump. The future of the agricultural economy may be impacted by these Punjab floods.
“Water is all we have,” the saying goes.
According to agriculture experts, the biggest challenge facing Punjab’s farmers will be getting rid of the soil and sediment that have settled over their farmland.
Independent agricultural policy analyst Indra Shekhar Singh said the extent of the damage could not be determined until the fields’ water dried up. He told Al Jazeera, “Farmers’ fields are getting a lot of sediment and mud.” Another issue is “preparing the field for the upcoming season,” according to the article.
The monsoon or “kharif” crop accounts for about 80% of India’s total rice production, which is harvested between late September and early October. Farmers in Punjab are now rushing against the clock to prepare their fields for the wheat crop for the upcoming winter, which must start by early November, according to experts.
Shekhar Singh remarked, “The floods are having the worst effects on the paddy fields.” Even the conservative figures suggest significant losses to farmers, unless there is a miracle.
Shekhar Singh noted that the farmers are facing a critical nutritional crisis for the Rabi season in addition to the new diseases brought on by floodwaters, which may affect the standing crops.
India’s farmers rely on urea, which is the main fertiliser for about 46 percent of the world’s farmers. However, stocks have decreased: Urea stocks decreased from 8.64 million tonnes in August 2024 to 3.71 million tonnes in August this year.
Farmers in several Indian states panicked to purchase urea during this monsoon. The floods have now caused the underlying concern that the upcoming Rabi sowing may not be enough fertilisers. Urine prices have increased significantly over the previous month’s high, rising from $ 400 per tonne in May 2025 to $ 530 per tonne in September.
Shekhar Singh added, “This would lead to black marketing for fertilisers in impacted states like Punjab, and adds to the problem of fake pesticide circulation.
According to Singh of Punjabi University, farmers will experience a “prolonged economic crisis that will continue to affect them over the coming months.”
Singh, a farmer from Gurdaspur in Punjab, is also considering what his family’s future holds.
In Amritsar, one of Punjab’s largest cities that borders Pakistan, earlier this year, he had married his daughter to another farmer. Their farmland is also submerged.
Before pondering the tragedies confronting , a region where two sides of a tense border are grappling with the same crisis, he said, “I cannot travel to visit them even when we are suffering from the same disease.”
In response to the hostilities between India and Pakistan earlier this year after a 26-person attack in Indian-administered Kashmir resulted in the death of 26 civilians, Singh said, “We were ready to fight a war for these rivers.” In response, India had suspended the Indus Waters Treaty, which distributes the six rivers between neighbors with nuclear weapons, in a move that Pakistan described as “an act of war.”
Source: Aljazeera
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