Narinder Tiwana was a teenager when his father first used a light motor to draw out groundwater for their fields in Punjab’s Patiala district.
In a few years, however, the 3 horsepower motor pump was struggling. “So, we purchased a 5 hp motor,” the 51-year-old farmer from Dittupur village said. “When that motor failed, we bought a more powerful one.”
But over the years, the water table kept dropping. Today, Tiwana said he uses 20-25 hp motor pumps. “And yet we are struggling to get water,” he said. “Every year, the water goes down by three feet.”
His assessment is borne out by data. According to a study, the annual water table in Patiala, where rice is one of the two main crops, fell by around 188 % between 1996 and 2018.
Tiwana was looking for a way out of this crisis when he met Kahan Singh Pannu, a 64-year-old farmer who once served as secretary of agriculture for the Punjab government.
Since his retirement in 2020, Pannu has actively worked on innovative farming techniques on his own land and encouraged farmers to adopt them.
His evangelism is driven by a sense of urgency. “At this stage, we have to assume that there is no water left...
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