Rice Farming Deepens India’s Groundwater Crisis As Borewells Run Dry
Water-intensive cultivation and subsidy-driven incentives push farmers to drill deeper amid rising rice exports
India’s rice cultivation practices are placing severe pressure on the country’s already stressed groundwater reserves, forcing farmers in key grain-producing states to dig ever-deeper and costlier borewells, according to a Reuters report citing farmers and water experts.
In Haryana and Punjab, two of India’s largest rice-growing states, groundwater that was accessible at around 30 feet a decade ago has now slipped to depths of between 80 and 200 feet, around 50 farmers and several agriculture and water officials told Reuters. The accelerated depletion has sharply raised cultivation costs, particularly for small and marginal farmers.
“Every year, the borewell has to go deeper. It’s getting too expensive,” said Balkar Singh, a farmer from Haryana, underscoring the mounting financial strain.
Experts say government policies continue to encourage water-intensive rice farming. Subsidies, including a state-guaranteed minimum support price and heavily subsidised electricity for irrigation, discourage a shift to less water-consuming crops. Uday Chandra, a South Asia politics expert at Georgetown University in Qatar, told Reuters that such incentives have locked farmers into unsustainable cultivation patterns.
The pressure comes as India overtook China in 2025 to become the world’s largest rice producer. Rice cultivation accounts for between 34 per cent and 43 per cent of global irrigation water use, according to the World Economic Forum. Studies suggest producing one kilogram of rice can require an average of 2,500 litres of water, far higher than most staple crops.
While larger farmers are often able to absorb rising costs, subsistence growers face mounting debt as drilling deeper wells becomes unavoidable. Analysts warn that without policy reform, water harvesting and a shift towards less water-intensive crops, India risks worsening long-term water stress even as it expands agricultural output and exports.
(with inputs from Reuters)
