Agriculture / Photo Essay

Heavy Lies the Grain

Punjab's farmers struggle with the Green Revolution's toxic legacy

Kanak is Sanskrit for gold. In Punjabi, however, it means wheat—lit up by the lights of a harvester in Sema, in Bathinda district, on the night of 27 April 2024.
Kanak is Sanskrit for gold. In Punjabi, however, it means wheat—lit up by the lights of a harvester in Sema, in Bathinda district, on the night of 27 April 2024.
Harsha Vadlamani
01 March, 2025

This February marked a year since Punjab’s farmers began occupying the highways at Khanauri and Shambhu, along the state’s borders with Haryana. Hundreds of them had set off on their tractors to Delhi, hoping for a repeat of the protests in 2020–21, against the three controversial farm laws. The farmers were stopped before they could enter Haryana and have camped at the border ever since. Among their key demands is a legal assurance for a minimum support price, or MSP, for all farm produce.

The Green Revolution, which introduced hybrid seeds, chemical fertilisers and pesticides, and new technologies in the 1960s, helped Punjabi farmers make massive strides in food production. Punjab, which represents less than two percent of India’s geographical area, now produces about sixteen percent of the country’s wheat and eleven percent of its rice. I made several trips to Punjab between 2016 and 2024 to document the challenges confronting the state’s farmers today.

The Bhakra Canal at Khanauri, Punjab, on 30 January 2024. The canal carries water from the Bhakra dam, built on the Sutlej River, to irrigate about 4 million hectares in Punjab, Haryana and Rajasthan.
Ram Swarup, a 50-year-old farmer, watched the receding waters of the Ghaggar in Sadhuwala in Mansa district on 26 July 2023. The Ghaggar, a seasonal river, had been in spate after receiving heavy inflows—attributed to climate change by scientists—from the upper reaches of the Himalayas.