Crop choice on 2.4 hectares: matching a fixed water budget to income and risk in Solapur
Ganesh Pawar farms 2.4 ha at the edge of the Bhima basin in Solapur district. His dug well and farm pond together yield a reliable 6,000 cubic metres of water a year; the Ujani canal reaches his land only in years of good storage (three of the last ten). His options, as worked out with the village extension officer:
- Sugarcane: 14-month crop, 95 t/ha, factory 14 km away paying the FRP of ₹3,400/t, applied irrigation about 1,900 mm, cultivation cost about ₹1.10 lakh/ha.
- Pomegranate under drip: 7 t/ha, applied irrigation about 600 mm, cost about ₹1.50 lakh/ha including drip and plant protection; Solapur mandi price over five years ranged ₹35,000–₹1,10,000 per tonne.
- Onion–jowar rotation: onion 22 t/ha at ₹6–₹32 per kg, applied irrigation about 750 mm, cost about ₹60,000/ha.
He has no hired labour except at harvest and carries an outstanding loan of ₹1.8 lakh. He wants a plan that repays the loan and survives a bad price year.
1. Convert the water budget into hectares for each option and estimate gross and rough net income. Show the arithmetic.
Read the worked answer
Conversion rule: 1 mm of applied water over 1 ha = 10 m³. So 6,000 m³ = 600 mm over one hectare.
| Crop | Water/ha | Area from 6,000 m³ | Yield | Gross income | Cost | Rough net |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sugarcane | 1,900 mm (19,000 m³) | 6,000 ÷ 19,000 = 0.32 ha | 0.32 × 95 = 30 t | 30 × 3,400 = ₹1.02 lakh (over 14 months) | 0.32 × 1.10 lakh = ₹35,000 | ₹67,000 in 14 months |
| Pomegranate | 600 mm (6,000 m³) | 1.00 ha | 7 t | 7 × 70,000 = ₹4.90 lakh (at ₹35,000/t: ₹2.45 lakh) | ₹1.50 lakh | ₹3.40 lakh (worst price: ₹0.95 lakh) |
| Onion–jowar | 750 mm (7,500 m³) | 6,000 ÷ 7,500 = 0.80 ha | 0.80 × 22 = 17.6 t | 17.6 × 12,000 = ₹2.11 lakh (at ₹6/kg: ₹1.06 lakh) | 0.80 × 60,000 = ₹48,000 | ₹1.63 lakh (worst price: ₹0.58 lakh) |
Key finding: at 6,000 m³ the entire holding cannot be planted to sugarcane - only 0.32 ha - and that fragment yields ₹67,000 spread over 14 months, the weakest return per cubic metre. Water, not land, is the binding constraint, so the comparison must be made per hectare actually irrigated, not per hectare owned. Two-thirds of the holding (about 1.4 ha) must be left to rainfed jowar, tur or fodder whatever he chooses.
2. Which option would you advise, and how would you structure the plan to protect him in a bad price year?
Read the worked answer
Reject sugarcane. It converts 19,000 m³ per hectare into the lowest net return, it occupies land for 14 months, it needs hired cane-cutters he does not have, and its water demand is three times his entire annual supply. It survives only where canal water is assured - his is assured in three years out of ten.
Core of the plan: pomegranate on about 1 ha under drip. It fits his water exactly (600 mm × 1 ha = his full 6,000 m³), gives the highest expected net return, and drip allows small, frequent doses during the August dry spell. But its price range is threefold, and at ₹35,000/t net falls to about ₹0.95 lakh - still positive, but not enough to repay ₹1.8 lakh quickly.
Protection measures, in order of importance:
- Do not stake the whole holding. Keep 0.8 ha under onion–jowar on the remaining water in the first two years, so a pomegranate price collapse does not remove all cash flow; onion is a 3–4 month crop and gives an early return.
- Stagger and insure. Split the pomegranate into two blocks planted a year apart, so a single bad flowering or price year does not hit the whole area; take crop insurance and register with an FPO for grading and collective bargaining instead of selling to the first mandi buyer - the ₹35,000–₹1,10,000 spread is largely a quality and timing spread.
- Repay the loan from the onion block plus the first pomegranate harvest, not from borrowing again, and do not assume canal water in the plan at all.
3. Two years later the canal releases water for the first time in three years. Why should this not change the plan, and what should he do with the extra water?
Read the worked answer
An intermittent canal is not a water source - it is a windfall. Planning on it is precisely the error that produced his ₹1.8 lakh loan: farmers who expand to sugarcane on the expectation of canal water end up buying tanker water in the fourth year. Keep the well-and-drip plan as the base and treat canal water as variable, not dependable.
Best use of a windfall, in order:
- Recharge, don't just irrigate. Divert the first releases into a recharge pit or his existing dug well so the shallow weathered-zone aquifer is topped up; that water then supports the February base flow on his own farm in a later dry year.
- Extend the safest crop, not the thirstiest. Use the extra water to bring another 0.3–0.4 ha under drip pomegranate or to secure the onion block, rather than to plant 1 ha of sugarcane - sugarcane would lock up land and labour for 14 months for a return that is still the lowest per cubic metre.
- Keep the surplus in fodder or a short-duration crop so that a sudden canal cut does not leave a perennial orchard or a 14-month crop stranded.
The examinable principle: when water supply is uncertain, plan on the reliable minimum and treat every addition as a one-season bonus, applied where it raises future reliability rather than present consumption.