Sip By Sip, Water-Guzzling Crops Drain India's Groundwater

In December 2024, Shahbudeen spent Rs. 4.5 lakh - almost his entire annual farming income - to dig a borewell for irrigation. After hours of labor, the digging reached 600 feet, only to end in a dry, waterless pit, shattering the hopes of the 51-year-old farmer and his family.

Shahbudeen, who uses only his first name, owns 10.5 bighas of land (a traditional unit of measurement; a bigha is typically equivalent to 0.62 acres) in Thekra village, located in Rajasthan's Alwar district. In the rabi season of 2024, he sowed onion on four bighas, mustard on 1.5 bighas and wheat on 1.25 bighas, leaving the rest barren due to the lack of water.

Shahbudeen's brother dug a bore at 1,055 feet but didn't find a drop of water.

Sitting on a patch of barren land, he points to the adjacent mustard field. To irrigate it, Shahbudeen purchases water from a neighbouring farmer, who is fortunate to have a borewell that has not gone dry yet, for Rs. 200 per hour.

"To irrigate 1.5 bighas, I need 10 hours of running water, which costs me around Rs. 5,000," he explains. "I grow wheat to feed my family but won't keep the full harvest. A third of it will go to the farmer selling water to me," he says.

Mustard is also grown for self-consumption, while onions bring him an annual income of Rs. 5-6 lakh, provided the market price is favorable.

Shahbudeen also uses DAP (Diammonium Phosphate), a type of fertiliser, to cover the water requirement as the fertiliser moistens the soil, he says.

Some 30 km away, in Senthli Panchayat, 51-year-old Bijendra Kumar has not grown wheat for 15 years due to a lack of water. Last year, he sowed mustard, which needs to be irrigated twice, unlike wheat which requires water four to six times. He says, "If it rains again, the crop will get water; otherwise, it will dry up. Sab maalik ke hawale hai. (It is all in the hands of God)."

Sometimes Mr Kumar purchases a water tanker (6,000-7,000 litres of water) for Rs. 1,000 to irrigate the field. However, even with this, he can only sprinkle water and not flood the field.

Mr Kumar and his brothers have also invested hundreds of thousands of rupees in digging 35 borewells, all at different depths. Currently, only two of them, dug at 400 feet, have some water.

Shahbudeen and Bijendra Kumar mirror the present and future of hundreds of farmers in Rajasthan who primarily grow water-guzzling crops. While farmers like Mr Kumar have almost given up on farming because they are buried in debt without any sign of water below their feet, Shahbudeen is trying to continue till he meets the same fate.

A six-month investigation into how water-guzzling crops are depleting India's groundwater and soil health revealed that farmers in Tamil Nadu, Gujarat and the desert state of Rajasthan have devoted over half of their land to growing water-thirsty crops, including rice, wheat, and onion, requiring more groundwater than the national average.

In this three-part series, we explore the impact of cultivating water-guzzling crops on groundwater use, soil health, and potentially human well-being. The first part delves into groundwater consumption - the amount of water needed to quench the thirst of these crops.

For this story, we looked at "Mekonnen, M.M. and Hoekstra, A.Y. (2010) The green, blue and grey water footprint of crops and derived crop products." We analysed the blue water footprint of each crop for each state and identified the water-intensive crops - those consuming more water than the national average.

For instance, nationally, rice requires 452 cubic meters per ton (m³/ton) of blue water. States like Rajasthan and Tamil Nadu use more than double the national average.

While the blue water footprint represents the volume of surface and groundwater consumed, the green water footprint refers to the volume of rainwater consumed. The grey water footprint reflects the amount of water needed to dilute pollutants (fertilisers and pesticides, among others) used in planting crops to safe levels.

Water-Guzzling Crops Are Drying Up Groundwater

On average, nine out of every 10 litres of the groundwater extracted is used for irrigation by states with the highest area of water-intensive crops like rice, wheat and sugarcane. The top three states in this category are Gujarat, Rajasthan and Tamil Nadu.

This much water can fill up over 80,000 bathtubs, considering 70 gallons (265 liters) of water is required to fill a regular bathtub, according to the US Environmental Protection Agency.

Tamil Nadu grows thirsty crops like rice, sugarcane, pigeon peas, lentils, nuts and oilseeds in 66 per cent of the area under cultivation. Whereas, Gujarat has dedicated 59 per cent of the cultivable area to water-intensive crops.

Farmers in Rajasthan, the state with the third highest proportion of area under cultivation devoted to water-intensive crops in the last 10 years (2013-2023), grow sugarcane, rice, wheat, and chillies, among others, on over half of their cultivable land.

In contrast, five and a half in 10 litres of the extracted groundwater is used for irrigation in the top three states with the highest proportion of area under cultivation devoted to growing non-water intensive crops. This includes Jharkhand, Odisha and Tripura.

"Paani ki to bhaut samasya hai, madam (There is a huge water crisis)," said Kala Khan, a farmer from Rajasthan.

It is half past noon, and the winter sun is in full glory, giving the illusion of summer. Kala Khan sits on his haunches in the middle of an onion field, watching the water slowly make its way from the pump at the corner. He waits quietly for it to reach the centre. Once it does, he carves small furrows in the soil, directing the water flow, and giving the onions the drink they need.

Kala Khan, 35, lives with his wife and four children - two girls and two boys - in Bulla Ka Bass, a locality in Jahar Khera village of Alwar district in Rajasthan. Mr Khan has been farming for over two decades. He primarily grows onion, wheat, and mustard.

In 2023, Mr Khan and his brothers purchased around seven bighas of land for Rs. 30 lakh in the village, across the road, to dig a borewell. They spent another Rs. 20 lakh, the amount he could use to marry his daughter, to dig a 1,000-foot-deep borewell and set up a three km-long pipeline to bring water to their fields.

The family hasn't switched to non-water-intensive crops because "onion and wheat crops bring us money," said Mr Khan. "I do grow vegetables on a small patch of land but that is for self-consumption. I also grow Bajra and Jowar between July and August as they require less water and work as fodder," he added.

Onion is more water-guzzling than wheat but growing onion is like a "gamble for farmers" since the rates are very volatile, explained SP Yadav, Agriculture Research Officer, Soil Testing Laboratory, Alwar, Rajasthan. "Sometimes onions make farmers rich. The rates were low in mid-November of 2024, but by the time December started, the rates improved, so farmers were happy," he said.

Despite Rajasthan being a desert state, farmers like Mr Khan depend on growing thirsty crops, which is reflected in the state's groundwater consumption.

Rajasthan is among the top five states extracting the most groundwater, primarily for irrigation, according to an analysis of groundwater data published by the Ministry of Water Resources, River Development & Ganga Rejuvenation for 2013, 2017, 2020, 2022 and 2023.

In 2023, Rajasthan extracted 16.74 billion cubic meters (bcm) of groundwater. Of this, 14.3 bcm or 85 per cent was used for irrigation.

Of the 16.74 bcm of extracted groundwater, only 12.45 bcm of water was recharged. This means, the state used nearly 1.5 liters of water against recharge of 1 litre of water.

Experts suggest a lack of groundwater recharge is also due to less rainfall. "Earlier we had good rains, it would rain for long periods and recharge groundwater. Farmers too would fill up their wells. Farmers are digging thousands of feet deep into the ground to extract water for irrigation because of reduced rainfall," Mr Yadav said.

In 2023, 29 of the 33 districts in Rajasthan were found to have over-exploited groundwater.

To correct this, the state government is promoting farm ponds for rainwater harvesting. "Farm ponds can store up to four lakh litres of water, which farmers can use to irrigate their fields two to three times," said Ajai Pachori, Joint Director, Agriculture (Chemistry), Government of Rajasthan. When there is a water shortage or during the non-rainy season, particularly in September-October, when crops are flowering and require more water, farmers can use the stored water. This is called life-saving irrigation, explained Mr Pachori.

The state government has also created over 15,000 pits to store water under the ground. The state also has around 22 lakh hectares of area under micro-irrigation scheme - sprinkler, mini sprinkler and drip, said Khemraj Sharma, Joint Director, Commissionerate of Agriculture.

Two years ago, Ram Kishore, a farmer from Dehra village in Alwar, installed sprinklers on his farm. "It saves water," he says. Ram Kishore received a government subsidy for the same.

Staple Food Crops Dominate Groundwater Usage In Top Water-Intensive Crop-Growing States

"Everyone wants wheat on their food plate," said Khemraj Sharma, explaining how certain water-guzzling crops bring good money and make farmers self-sufficient. "Farmers feel it is better to produce wheat on their land than purchase from the market as it will be cheaper and they will get fodder for their animals. It makes them self-sufficient. Most importantly, it brings good money," he said.

Over the past decade, farmers in Tamil Nadu have devoted over half of their land under cultivation to growing water-intensive staple food crops like rice, potatoes and millet. Farmers in Gujarat and Rajasthan use one-third of the area under cultivation for water-intensive staples.

The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) of the United Nations defines staple food food as one "eaten regularly and in such quantities as to constitute the dominant part of the diet and supply a major proportion of energy and nutrient needs." In the Indian context, staple food includes wheat, rice, sugarcane, chickpeas, maize, millets, and potatoes.

One staple "does not meet a population's total nutritional needs"; a variety of food is required.

Pulses, fruits, meat, and green vegetables constitute non-staple food crops.

Gujarat has a quarter of the area under cultivation devoted to growing water-intensive non-staple food crops. The share is even lower in the other two states, Rajasthan and Tamil Nadu - 24 per cent and 15 per cent respectively.

The article is the first of a three-part series on the impact of growing water-guzzling crops. In the second part of the series, we look at the impact of these crops and flooding the field on soil health. Does excessive water wash away essential macro and micronutrients from the soil? Or is the crop that pulls out all nutrients, leaving the soil undernourished? Read part 2 here.

Methodology:

This data story looks at the impact of growing water-intensive crops on groundwater, soil health and human health.

To begin with, the author looked at the "Mekonnen, M.M. and Hoekstra, A.Y. (2010) The green, blue and grey water footprint of crops and derived crop products" report to identify water-intensive crops in states across India. The author considered only blue water footprint data to know how much groundwater is being used to irrigate a crop, in a state. If a state uses more blue water than the national average to grow a certain crop, then the author considered the crop "water-intensive" in that state.

The author also looked at the "Area, Production & Yield - Reports" from 2013-2023 to calculate the proportion of area under cultivation of water-intensive or non-water-intensive crops in each state. The area, production and yield reports were taken from the official website of the Directorate of Economics and Statistics, Department of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare, Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare.

Following this methodology, the author identified three states with the highest proportion of area under cultivation for water-intensive crops and three states with the highest proportion of area under cultivation for non-water-intensive crops. They then looked at Soil Health Card data (2023-24) by the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare. They focused on the status of macronutrients (N, P, K) and micronutrients (S, Fe, Zn) in the soil to see if the soil in states growing water-intensive crops is more deficient in essential nutrients.

The author also looked at the National Family Health Survey (NFHS-5) data specifically for the six states and analysed data for key health indicators - malnutrition and anaemia among children under five and women.

All supporting data and analysis can be accessed here.

The author travelled to Alwar district in Rajasthan and met farmers in different villages to understand their challenges.

(Reporting for this story was supported by the Environmental Data Journalism Academy- a program of Internews' Earth Journalism Network and Thibi.)