Pumping Punjab dry

The Northern Indian state of Punjab is the country´s historic breadbasket, and 60-yearold Harnek Singh is one of the million farmers who work its soil. On a sunny February afternoon in Khunimajra, about 275 kilometers from New Delhi, he is busy repairing his tube well. The tube well is simple: a steel pipe bored into the ground and attached to a cheap electric pump. This rudimentary tool is the engine of Singh´s success as a farmer. But it and millions of others like it are quickly draining away India´s agricultural riches.Even so, farmers are emptying Punjab´s aquifers at an alarming rate. Each year, as the groundwater table steadily retreats, they are forced to go half a meter deeper to pump water. Two abandoned wells on Singh´s farm offer proof of the changing conditions.If cultivation continues here as it has, the groundwater-the source of most of Punjab´s irrigation-could be exhausted in 20 years, say researchers at Punjab Agricultural University, in Ludhiana.