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Agro-forestry: Poplar’s popularity dip, no takers for PM Modi’s timber farming call -Anju Agnihotri Chaba & Raakhi Jagga
-The Indian Express

Punjab’s farmers are losing interest in planting new trees, with prices halving from their peaks.

Jalandhar/ Ludhiana: Sandeep Singh Randhawa grew paddy and wheat on his 65-acre land at Talwandi Lal Singh village in Gurdaspur district’s Batala tehsil. That was till the late eighties, when he first planted poplar on the edges of his field. The returns encouraged him to expand the area under these trees — each giving 4-5 quintals of wood in around six years — to 57 acres by the mid-1990s.

But in the last two years, Randhawa has stopped planting new poplars after felling mature trees, reducing overall acreage to 42 acres. “When I sold my first trees in the mid-nineties, I got Rs 500 per quintal. That rate hasn’t changed, even while plywood prices have gone up four times to Rs 36-38 per square feet”, he complains, adding “I’ll wait for a few years before planting again.

Harmohan Ghuman from Khera Bet village near Ludhiana also started poplar farming in mid-eighties on 30 acres, before gradually raising it to cover his entire 150 acres. He, too, hasn’t planted fresh trees for the past two years. “It’s a mystery why poplar prices are falling when its products are selling at such a high rate. I’ve been asking farmers to reduce area. Unless we create a gap between demand and supply, the prices will not rise”, says Ghuman, who is also secretary of the Tree Growers Association promoted by the Punjab Agriculture University.

Mandeep Singh of Adda Kanwa village in Gurdaspur too, had only poplars on his seven acres until recently. After getting the trees from two acres axed, he hasn’t re-planted that area since.

Mandeep, Ghuman and Randhawa are among Punjab’s 10,000-12,000 farmers, who cultivate poplars over an estimated 90,000-100,000 acres — mostly in the northeast Kandi region districts of Ropar, Nawanshahr, Hoshiarpur and Gurdaspur in the Shivalik foothills. A common grouse uniting them is prices, which have halved from the Rs 900-1,000 per quintal levels till 6-7 years back.

All this comes ironically even as Prime Minister Narendra Modi, only two months ago at a Krishi Unnati Mela in New Delhi, encouraged farmers to undertake timber plantation along the edges of their fields. This, he stated, would help diversify their income and reduce risks from regular crop agriculture.

Farmers, however, are a disillusioned lot. Many want to return to growing paddy and wheat, which bring comfort of government procurement at minimum support prices. The absence of any government regulation or organised market has allowed unscrupulous middlemen and ply-board factory owners to create a “false slump”, they claim.

“They tell us that prices are low because much-cheaper China ply is available in the market. Has anyone really seen this so-called China ply? They are only making fool of farmers,” alleges Randhawa.

Punjab’s forest department has been promoting poplar, which it sees as a means to replenish the dwindling green cover in the state, which has a mere 6.5 per cent area under forests and trees. The department distributes poplar saplings free of cost, but has no authority for purchase or supporting the prices of the trees they raise. “We can assist farmers by supplying good planting material and technical know-how. But price control isn’t in our hands”, admits Kuldeep Kumar, principal chief conservator of forests.

Ashok Juneja, chairman of the Punjab Plywood Manufacturers’ Association — the state has some 300 ply-board units — expressing concern says, “as it is the backbone of our industry”. He suggests that in order to encourage its cultivation, the plywood industry be given agro-based industry status. “We must not be charged commercial power rates, the 12 per cent central excise should be waived, and the state value-added tax reduced from 13.6 to 6 per cent”.

But, farmers like Gurpreet Singh Sandhu of Rara village in Hoshiarpur’s Tanda teshil, are not as pessimistic. Pointing to the neatly-lined poplars covering 70 out of his 90 acres, Sandhu believes farmers can make money even in slumps such as the present one.

Farmers typically plant 290-325 trees per acre. Taking an average of 300 trees weighing four quintals each, the revenue would come to Rs 6 lakh even at Rs 500/quintal. As against this, expenses would be Rs 6,000-7,000 per acre annually, which works out to not more than Rs 45,000 over six years.

“You require very little labour, not much fertiliser or pesticides, and 15-20 per cent of the water that paddy consumes. True, the money comes after six years, but you can grow wheat or sugarcane during the first 2-3 years when the plants are still short. I have harvested 12 quintals of wheat in poplar fields, which isn’t very low relative to the normal … Besides, the trees have improved the quality of my soil”, avers Sandhu.

Farmers were obviously making more money when prices were at Rs 900-1,000/quintal. “They should instead wait for market prices to go up again. It is bound to happen sometime” is his advice. This waiting game, of course, not every farmer can play. The ones with smaller holdings would have most trees maturing at the same time; if prices are low at that point, profits will be hit. That is not the case with larger growers, who have trees in more area and maturing at different periods. They may make less on sale of trees during slumps, but that will be more than compensated when prices improve.