By G L Raina, Ex-MLC
Each year, thousands of kanals of fertile land quietly disappear under concrete. There are no dramatic headlines, no sudden catastrophe — only a slow transformation that is steadily eroding the Valley’s capacity to feed itself and sustain its economy.
The recent warning by a legislator on the floor of the Assembly about the rapid shrinkage of paddy lands in Kashmir should be read not as a routine agricultural concern but as a signal of a deeper governance challenge. The steady conversion of fertile fields into concrete landscapes reflects a structural imbalance between development pressures and land stewardship. If ignored, this trend will not only undermine food security but also reshape the Valley’s economic resilience, environmental stability, and social equilibrium.
At its core, the issue is simple: land is finite, but demand for it is expanding relentlessly. Housing, infrastructure, commerce, and public utilities are all competing for the same limited space that once sustained agriculture. The disappearance of paddy fields is therefore not an isolated phenomenon; it is the most visible manifestation of a broader policy gap in how land is valued, regulated, and allocated.
The Strategic Importance of Agricultural Land
Kashmir’s agrarian landscape has historically been the foundation of its food systems and rural economy. Paddy cultivation, in particular, is more than a crop — it is an anchor for livelihoods, local markets, and cultural rhythms. The steady reduction in acreage over recent years, coupled with a longer-term decline in cultivable land, signals a gradual erosion of productive capacity.
This erosion carries strategic implications. As local output falls, dependence on imported food grains rises, exposing the region to price volatility and supply disruptions. Over time, such dependence can translate into higher living costs, fiscal strain, and reduced economic autonomy. In policy terms, losing fertile land is akin to losing future production infrastructure — once built over, it cannot easily be reclaimed.
Urbanisation Without Spatial Discipline
The expansion of urban centres, particularly around Srinagar, illustrates the urgency of the challenge. Population growth, rural-to-urban migration, and rising aspirations have accelerated demand for housing, infrastructure , burial grounds and commercial space. Yet this expansion has largely followed a horizontal pattern, consuming agricultural belts at city edges rather than prioritising densification within existing urban footprints.
Such growth, when not guided by a coherent spatial strategy, produces cascading effects: land prices escalate, infrastructure struggles to keep pace, and ecological buffers shrink. The conversion of wetlands and fields reduces natural flood absorption capacity, while fragmented development increases service delivery costs. Over time, the city becomes both more expensive and less resilient.
A Convergence of Environmental Pressures
Climate variability compounds the problem. Changing rainfall patterns, periodic dry spells, and shifting growing seasons are already affecting agricultural viability. Farmers facing uncertain yields and rising costs often find selling land to be the most rational economic decision. This, however, feeds a cycle in which environmental stress accelerates land conversion, and land conversion further weakens ecological stability.
The result is not merely agricultural decline but a gradual reconfiguration of the Valley’s landscape — one where built environments expand even as the ecological foundations that sustain them erode.
Where Policy Has Fallen Short
The shrinking of paddy lands reflects several systemic gaps.
First, land-use regulations have not been enforced with sufficient consistency. While legal frameworks exist to regulate conversion, monitoring and enforcement remain uneven, allowing incremental losses that accumulate into significant decline.
Second, governance is fragmented. Urban planning, agriculture, revenue administration, and environmental oversight operate in parallel rather than through an integrated land strategy. Without coordination, decisions made in one sector often undermine objectives in another.
Third, economic incentives are misaligned. Real estate returns frequently far exceed agricultural income, creating strong pressures for farmers to exit cultivation. In the absence of meaningful support, preservation of farmland becomes economically unsustainable for landowners.
Finally, spatial planning has not fully incorporated food security considerations. Agriculture is often treated as a residual land use rather than a strategic priority, making it vulnerable to incremental encroachment.
A Policy Agenda for Land Security
Reversing current trends requires a shift from reactive regulation to proactive land stewardship. Protect prime agricultural zones. High-value paddy belts should be legally designated as protected areas, with conversion permitted only under exceptional and transparent conditions. Such designations must be backed by robust monitoring and penalties for violations.
Promote compact urban growth. Incentivising vertical housing, mixed-use redevelopment, and efficient land utilisation within existing city limits can reduce pressure on peripheral farmland. Urban expansion should be guided by clear density targets and infrastructure capacity assessments.
Align incentives with preservation. Financial instruments — including assured procurement, tax relief, and direct support — can make continued cultivation economically viable, reducing the push toward land sales.
Integrate land governance. A unified spatial planning framework that links agriculture, urban development, environment, and infrastructure policy would enable more coherent decision-making. Digitised land records and geospatial monitoring can improve transparency and accountability.
Embed sustainability in planning. Public transport expansion, green buffers, and water-sensitive urban design can reduce the land footprint of development while enhancing resilience.
The Demographic Dimension
Long-term land sustainability is inseparable from demographic trends. Population growth increases demand for housing, services, and food, intensifying competition for space. Rights-based approaches — focusing on education, healthcare access, and women’s empowerment — remain the most effective pathway to stabilising population pressures. International experience, including assessments by the United Nations, consistently shows that such measures yield sustainable demographic outcomes without coercion. Kashmir can no longer afford to ignore this aspect.
Why the Moment Matters
Policy inertia is costly because land conversion is largely irreversible. Each season that passes without corrective action narrows the scope for gradual adjustment. What might today appear as incremental loss could, over a decade, translate into structural dependence and reduced policy flexibility.
Conversely, timely intervention offers an opportunity to balance development with sustainability. Protecting agricultural land does not mean halting growth; it means guiding growth in ways that preserve the region’s long-term capacity to feed itself, sustain livelihoods, and maintain ecological balance.
A Choice About the Valley’s Future
Kashmir stands at a crossroads where decisions about land will shape not just its economy but its social fabric and environmental health. The disappearance of paddy fields is a visible reminder that development choices carry spatial consequences. Treating land as a strategic resource — on par with water and energy — is therefore no longer optional; it is essential.
The challenge before policymakers is to move beyond short-term accommodation of demand toward a long-term vision of land security. Doing so will require political will, institutional coordination, and a recognition that sustainable growth depends not on how much land is consumed, but on how wisely it is used.
The warning signs are already visible across the Valley. Acting on them now can still preserve both productivity and resilience. Ignoring them would allow a slow-moving crisis to harden into a permanent constraint — one that future generations will find far harder to reverse than we do today.
(Girdhari Lal Raina is a former Member of the legislative council of Jammu Kashmir
and spokesperson of BJP JK-UT)
