Salty soil across the northern plains, once deemed unfit for any kind of agriculture, is spawning an unlikely boom in aquaculture. Shrimp ponds carved out of saline wastelands are fast replacing traditional crops, giving farmers returns that are rewriting their financial story
A landlocked state is not where you’d usually go looking for seafood. But in villages better known for tractors and tubewells than trawlers, shrimp — a crop of the coast — is rewriting what it means to work a farm. In parts of north India, where salinity once spelt doom for crops, farmers are discovering that what kills wheat might just fatten up prawns. While Haryana leads the charge, and Rajasthan is racing ahead, Punjab is also betting on its potential.
Lahli’s leap of faith
Lahli’s leap of faith