Gujarati farmers are known for their astute business sense. They invariably switch over to a crop that fetches them more money. Earlier, when the farmers in Gujarat found cotton cultivation more profitable than groundnut crop, they had started growing more cotton. This year, Gujarat farmers have taken to cultivation of wheat to reap a rich harvest. The state is expected to get a record harvest of 33-34 lakh tonnes of wheat this year. This is four times higher than what was made in 2002-03 and also double the 2004-05 production. However, Gujarat farmers' wheat productivity is less than that of the Punjab farmers. Punjab is expected to produce more than 15 million tonnes of wheat this year. According to a top official of the agriculture department of the Gujarat government, farmers have been switching over to wheat cultivation from sugar cane and paddy, mainly because of higher prices of the grain in the market. The farmers from the Saurashtra region of the state, however, have preferred to cultivate cotton in place of groundnut. There has been a shrinkage in the area of cultivation of groundnut from 19 lakh hectares to 16 lakh hectares and a corresponding increase in the area of cultivation of cotton over the last four years. Change in weather conditions, availability of high yielding variety of seeds and improved and assured irrigation facilities are said to be primarily responsible for Gujarat emerging as a major wheat growing state. According to agriculture experts, the state has been witnessing colder winters, with average temperatures less than 20 degrees Celsius for over a decade now. Earlier, the winters never witnessed such a 'favourable' average temperature. There has also been an increase in the area under cultivation of crops over the last four years. The state used to have 79 lakh hectares under cultivation for the kharif crops and 17 lakh hectares for the rabi crops four years ago. Today, as much as 88 lakh hectares is under kharif crops, as against 33 lakh hectares under rabi crops. Today, wheat is grown on 13 lakh hectares, more than double the area of seven lakh hectares used five years ago. The increase in the area of cultivation is primarily attributed to the availability of water through the Sardar Sarovar project's Narmada canals, which carry 2,000 cusecs of water. The immediate impact of increased irrigation was that an additional 2.87 lakh hectares of land was brought under cultivation during the last three years. Moreover, weather too has been kind to the state, with the average annual rainfall recording 1,200 mm. The groundwater table too has gone up by four-five metres as a result of an extensive water harvesting programme under which more than one lakh check-dams have been constructed and two lakh ponds have been dug.