After enduring a series of economic setbacks, Gurvinder Singh, a 47-year-old farmer from Gurdaspur in Punjab, India, took on a million-rupee loan (approximately $11,000) from a private lender to fund his eldest daughter’s wedding. He managed to set aside a portion of that money to cultivate three acres (1.2 hectares) of paddy, betting on the promising high-yielding pearl variety of aromatic Basmati rice. A successful harvest could have netted him close to one million rupees per acre (around $11,400 per 0.4 hectares).
However, Singh’s hopes have been drowned along with his crops, as floodwaters have completely submerged his fields, burying the precious grains under layers of mud and sediment. “I cannot afford this shocking flood at this time in my life. We are ruined,” Singh lamented. “This year’s harvest was supposed to cover our debts. But this field is a lake now, and I don’t know how I will start again.”
The floods hit Singh’s village earlier this month, forcing him, his wife, and two children to temporarily evacuate their home. “What will I go back to?” he wondered, echoing the sentiments of many farmers in the region.
The catastrophic floods have been a result of relentless monsoon rains, which have caused rivers to swell and inundate entire villages and vast expanses of farmland across northern India. In Punjab, where over 35 percent of the population depends on agriculture, the situation is dire. Farmers are facing the worst flooding seen in the last four decades, with large swathes of paddy fields submerged just weeks before the harvest. Punjab is a crucial agricultural hub, cultivating rice across nearly two-thirds of its total area.
Gurdaspur has emerged as one of the most severely affected districts, situated adjacent to three overflowing rivers—Ravi, Beas, and Sutlej—after heavy rainfall in Jammu and Kashmir and Himachal Pradesh. The human toll is staggering, with at least 51 fatalities reported and 400,000 individuals displaced due to the floods.
Singh’s paddy field is a contributor to India’s $6 billion Basmati export market, with Punjab alone accounting for 40 percent of the country’s production. On the other side of the border, Pakistan’s Punjab province also grapples with flooding and is responsible for 90 percent of Pakistan’s Basmati output, generating nearly $900 million.
Initial government estimates suggest that over 450,000 acres (182,100 hectares) of farmland in Punjab have been completely lost—a figure that independent agricultural economists warn could be underreported by a factor of five. “The crop is completely spoiled, their machinery is submerged, and the farmers’ houses have washed away,” stated Lakhwinder Singh, director of the Centre for Development Economics and Innovations Studies at Punjabi University.
“Punjab’s farmers have to restart from scratch. They would require a lot of support and investment from the government,” he added. So far, the Punjab government, led by the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), which stands in opposition to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party, has announced a meager allowance of 20,000 Indian rupees (about $230) for farmers who have lost their crops to the floods—a sum that many believe falls drastically short of what is needed to address the extensive damage.
The crisis has been further exacerbated by the looming threat of international trade dynamics. Nearly 6 percent of India’s Basmati rice is exported to the United States, where a 50 percent tariff has been imposed. India has historically been protective of its agricultural sector, a vital component of its economy, employing half of the country’s workforce—the largest globally. This protectionism has been a contentious point in trade discussions with the U.S. administration.
Singh cautioned the Indian government against using the floods as an excuse to liberalize policies on food grain imports. “The government must not push the farmers under the bus to reduce the tariffs and get a deal with Trump,” he asserted. “These Punjab floods could have a lasting repercussion on the future of the agricultural economy.”
The immediate challenge for farmers like Singh is to clear the soil and sediment that have settled on their land. Experts point out that the extent of damage can only be fully assessed once the water recedes. Indra Shekhar Singh, an independent agricultural policy analyst, noted, “There is excessive sedimentation and mud on farmers’ fields. Another problem is levelling the field, which incurs additional costs and is necessary to prepare for the next planting season.”
In India, the monsoon or “kharif” crop constitutes about 80 percent of total rice production, harvested from late September to October. With time running out, Punjab’s farmers are racing to ready their fields for the upcoming winter wheat crop, which must be sown by early November to prevent yield losses.
Unfortunately, the repercussions of the floods extend beyond immediate crop damage. Farmers are also facing a critical nutritional crisis for the Rabi season. Urea, a vital fertilizer that contains about 46 percent nitrogen, is in short supply. Stocks have plummeted from 8.64 million tonnes in August 2024 to just 3.71 million tonnes this August. This shortage has led to panic buying among farmers throughout India, and the floods have only intensified fears of inadequate supplies for upcoming sowings.
The increase in urea prices, which surged from $400 per tonne in May 2025 to $530 per tonne in September, raises concerns of black market activity in affected states like Punjab and adds to existing issues with counterfeit pesticides.
Punjabi University’s Singh warned that farmers face a prolonged economic crisis that will persist in the coming months. Meanwhile, Gurvinder Singh reflects on his uncertain future. Earlier this year, he married off his daughter to another farmer in Amritsar, a major city in Punjab that also faces flooding challenges. “I cannot travel to visit them even when we are suffering from the same disease,” he said, lamenting the shared plight of farmers on both sides of the tense India-Pakistan border.
In a poignant moment, he remarked, “We were ready to fight a war for these rivers,” referencing the tensions that flared earlier this year following an attack in Indian-administered Kashmir. “All we have now is water.”
