Sikhs in Poverty and Future of Panjab

[chatanga1]

1 hour ago, Ranjeet01 said:

I think that the older generation may be set in their ways but we should not necessarily discount their wisdom.

 

I am not discounting their wisdom, and can't see anyone else tring to either but the point here is that we are trying to increase their wisdom. There was a time, when all farming was hard manual labour. When people needed bullock-carts to pull ploughs but now they use tractors. Nowadays, there is so much done by machine, even seriuosly hard mundane work like the planting of rice etc.

 

Another point where farmers of Panjab seriously need to expand their wisdom is the conservation of water. Water is a key issue in Panjab at the moment. Farming the way our elders did 30 or 40 years ago is heading towards a mini-disaster.

 

I saw a video where this guy had actually had a suspended tract of soil where he was growing ridiculously large vegetables because of his expert use of water. And he told how he was nonly using some 10% of water that he used to use, in traditional methods.

[Ranjeet01]

48 minutes ago, chatanga1 said:

 

I am not discounting their wisdom, and can't see anyone else tring to either but the point here is that we are trying to increase their wisdom. There was a time, when all farming was hard manual labour. When people needed bullock-carts to pull ploughs but now they use tractors. Nowadays, there is so much done by machine, even seriuosly hard mundane work like the planting of rice etc.

 

Another point where farmers of Panjab seriously need to expand their wisdom is the conservation of water. Water is a key issue in Panjab at the moment. Farming the way our elders did 30 or 40 years ago is heading towards a mini-disaster.

 

I saw a video where this guy had actually had a suspended tract of soil where he was growing ridiculously large vegetables because of his expert use of water. And he told how he was nonly using some 10% of water that he used to use, in traditional methods.

How do we know that conservation of water wasn't an important knowledge known and practiced by farmers pre-Green Revolution and some very clever,intellectual people insisted in new methods which in turn created an issue with depleted ground water levels?

[chatanga1]

2 hours ago, Ranjeet01 said:

How do we know that conservation of water wasn't an important knowledge known and practiced by farmers pre-Green Revolution and some very clever,intellectual people insisted in new methods which in turn created an issue with depleted ground water levels?

 

Because no-one can force you to use or overuse the water on  your own land. If that knowledge was known beforehand then the farmers would not have implemented any changes to a system they knew worked for them.

Another example, the wheat grown today in Panjab is from a hybrid seed that was a result of research in Mexico. Before that Panjabi farmers used their own seeds, but when this new seed was taken to Panjab and trialled and the farmers there saw how it was better, they adopted the new seeds over their own. This happened in the early 70s. Slowly it replaced the original seed. Can we say the same for how water is used in Panjab?

[GurjantGnostic]

Water is heavily controlled before anyone touches it, and a lot of it is siphoned off and redirected. You really don't have control of the water under your feet. If it had been used for farming it would return to the water table. 

[Ranjeet01]

3 hours ago, chatanga1 said:

 

Because no-one can force you to use or overuse the water on  your own land. If that knowledge was known beforehand then the farmers would not have implemented any changes to a system they knew worked for them.

Another example, the wheat grown today in Panjab is from a hybrid seed that was a result of research in Mexico. Before that Panjabi farmers used their own seeds, but when this new seed was taken to Panjab and trialled and the farmers there saw how it was better, they adopted the new seeds over their own. This happened in the early 70s. Slowly it replaced the original seed. Can we say the same for how water is used in Panjab?

No one can force one to overuse the water on your land.

However, if the new hybrid seed from Mexico provided a greater yield, but it was more water intensive then any farmer's concern about depleting water table could be overriden.

[dallysingh101]

4 hours ago, Ranjeet01 said:

No one can force one to overuse the water on your land.

However, if the new hybrid seed from Mexico provided a greater yield, but it was more water intensive then any farmer's concern about depleting water table could be overriden.

Well, what's the excuse for the apparent casual attitude by farmers now? (I say this knowing full well that water has been siphoned off since the 80s at least).

That 'green revolution' looks like an experiment on Panjab that failed because it wasn't sustainable. Developing seeds with a high requirement for laboratory manufactured fertilizers, and high resistance to pesticides as well as abnormal levels of 'thirst' wasn't ever going to end well. 

Why are Panjabi farmers so slow to develop with things like vertical farming? Related to what Chatanga said, I remember meeting an Israeli about 15/16 years ago, and he was telling me about how Israelis had developed a watering system via pipes (being in a desert and that) and had minutely figured out the absolute minimal  amount of water to use to make good crops (can't remember what they were growing?) What the hell are all those 'Agricultural Universities' doing? I think every last one of you knows that unless we start to rapidly modernise and get creative, we are going to get f**ked, and that too within a few decades. 

[GurjantGnostic]

25 minutes ago, dallysingh101 said:

Well, what's the excuse for the apparent casual attitude by farmers now? (I say this knowing full well that water has been siphoned off since the 80s at least).

That 'green revolution' looks like an experiment on Panjab that failed because it wasn't sustainable. Developing seeds with a high requirement for laboratory manufactured fertilizers, and high resistance to pesticides as well as abnormal levels of 'thirst' wasn't ever going to end well. 

Why are Panjabi farmers so slow to develop with things like vertical farming? Related to what Chatanga said, I remember meeting an Israeli about 15/16 years ago, and he was telling me about how Israelis had developed a watering system via pipes (being in a desert and that) and had minutely figured out the absolute minimal  amount of water to use to make good crops (can't remember what they were growing?) What the hell are all those 'Agricultural Universities' doing? I thik every last one of you knows that unless we start to rapidly modernise and get creative, we are going to get f**ked, and that too within a few decades. 

Amen bro. Green revolution was putting the zip tie on the neck, what we see now is pulling it tight. 

[Ranjeet01]

7 hours ago, dallysingh101 said:

Well, what's the excuse for the apparent casual attitude by farmers now? (I say this knowing full well that water has been siphoned off since the 80s at least).

That 'green revolution' looks like an experiment on Panjab that failed because it wasn't sustainable. Developing seeds with a high requirement for laboratory manufactured fertilizers, and high resistance to pesticides as well as abnormal levels of 'thirst' wasn't ever going to end well. 

Why are Panjabi farmers so slow to develop with things like vertical farming? Related to what Chatanga said, I remember meeting an Israeli about 15/16 years ago, and he was telling me about how Israelis had developed a watering system via pipes (being in a desert and that) and had minutely figured out the absolute minimal  amount of water to use to make good crops (can't remember what they were growing?) What the hell are all those 'Agricultural Universities' doing? I think every last one of you knows that unless we start to rapidly modernise and get creative, we are going to get f**ked, and that too within a few decades. 

The probability is that the Green Revolution in it's initial years provided great yields. 

What do people do when they find a successful method that gets results? They do more of it and then increase the intensity.

If one person sees the another person be successful they try to mimic that template. 

In a place like Punjab, like a lot of other places, people tend to copy each other. 

Why you think going to University and getting an education is so important amongst our people?

The Israeli water use is a result of necessity because it is an arid desert area. It is the necessity that creates the innovation.

Punjab is a far more greener fertile place. We have a wet season called the Monsoon that replenishes the land. There is going to be less incentive to innovate in this instance. 

[Suchi]

4 hours ago, Ranjeet01 said:

The probability is that the Green Revolution in it's initial years provided great yields. 

What do people do when they find a successful method that gets results? They do more of it and then increase the intensity.

If one person sees the another person be successful they try to mimic that template. 

In a place like Punjab, like a lot of other places, people tend to copy each other. 

Why you think going to University and getting an education is so important amongst our people?

The Israeli water use is a result of necessity because it is an arid desert area. It is the necessity that creates the innovation.

Punjab is a far more greener fertile place. We have a wet season called the Monsoon that replenishes the land. There is going to be less incentive to innovate in this instance. 

New methods of farming are being taught to foreigners by Indians resulting in a ten fold increase in yields. Yet India is lagging behind the rest of the world. These methods make optimal use of land whilst utilising fewer raw materials including soil and water.  Freed up land could be put to use for industrialisation, animal husbandry etc.

With India's increasing population and under nourished children it is of paramount importance that this be alleviated through better farming methods.  

[dallysingh101]

On 7/5/2021 at 11:32 AM, Suchi said:

With India's increasing population and under nourished children it is of paramount importance that this be alleviated through better farming methods.  

What's weird though is that you go to Panjab and it looks like about 80/90% of middle aged adults have obesity issues?

 

On 7/5/2021 at 7:20 AM, Ranjeet01 said:

The probability is that the Green Revolution in it's initial years provided great yields. 

It did, this is common knowledge. My point is why there is a complete lack of forethought, dynamism and adaptation; and this is even more strange when you realise that there are so many agricultural universities out there?

 

Quote

Punjab is a far more greener fertile place. We have a wet season called the Monsoon that replenishes the land. There is going to be less incentive to innovate in this instance. 

The whole issue of diverting waters has been a known thing since I was a child. The sinking water table. This was a part of what kicked off the K'stani lehar. Yet farmers have continued to act like this isn't happening. It's strange. You would have thought that at least they would have sent people to study other more effective methods from abroad to counter this. Or developed their own techniques/technology in the unis. Again I'm completely baffled as to what these 'universities' actually contribute to the industry that they purport to service and study?