Centre Urges Farmers To Adopt Modern Technology For Proper Management Of Stubble

By Chanchal Mukherjee

New Delhi: The Ministry of Agriculture has urged farmers to adopt modern technology to manage stubble as it can help maintain soil health and curb pollution.

The Minister said proper stubble management will increase nitrogen content in soil after two years, require less urea, and lead to an increase in production by two quintals per acre. The modern machines help farmers save money as earlier preparing the field, irrigation, and sowing used to cost around Rs 5,000, but now the work can be completed for just Rs 1,500.

Discussing the issue with farmers, Union Minister for Agriculture and Farmers Welfare, Shivraj Singh Chouhan, said, “I appeal to farmers not to burn stubble".

He said Noorpur Bet village in Punjab's Ludhiana has set an example for others. "Stubble has not been burned in the village for the last seven years here. The farmers in the village manage stubble with the help of smart seeders and SMS-equipped combines. Their machines, instead of burning the stubble, spread it evenly across the field. This prepares the field for sowing immediately. There’s no need to burn stubble or to till the land.”

When sowing is done with the smart seeder, it compacts the soil and seeds. The stubble covers the soil, retaining moisture and strengthening the roots. “I have seen this with my own eyes and discussed it with the farmers and shared that earlier, preparing the field, irrigating, and sowing used to cost around Rs 5.000, but now the work is completed for Rs 1,500,” the Union Minister added.

Earlier, fields were prepared by burning stubble, but now, with the technology, there is no need for irrigation. The field retains its moisture, and the roots of the wheat crop grow deep and strong. As a result, the crop doesn’t lodge, nor do the grains become thin. This technology helps to reduce the use of urea, improves soil health, and enhances the field’s fertility.

The Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare had earlier said it primarily supports the efforts of the states of Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and NCT of Delhi for combating paddy stubble burning under the Crop Residue Management Scheme being implemented from 2018-19, focusing on both in-situ and ex-situ management of paddy straw.

Under the scheme, financial assistance of 50 per cent of the cost of machine is provided to the farmers for purchase of crop residue management machinery and 80 per cent for projects costing up to Rs 30 lakhs to rural entrepreneurs (Rural youth and farmer as an entrepreneur), cooperative societies of farmers, registered farmers societies, farmers producer organization (FPOs) and panchayats for establishment of custom hiring centres (CHCs) of crop residue management machines.

What experts say

“The government should ensure proper implementation and help farmers adopt modern machines and biomass use to reduce stubble-burning cases. If proper machines are given to the farmers, they would not burn the stubble. Currently, several farmers don’t have such facilities," Dharmendra Malik, an agriculture expert, told ETV Bharat.

He said there are not enough machines to deal with stubble on the fields. "Last year, farmers had met concerned authorities on stubble management and demanded machines but didn't receive a proper response from them. This year, farmers will write letters to the authorities for proper management of stubble after crop cutting. Let's see what happens," Sukhwinder Kaur who belongs to Bhatinda in Punjab and is an agriculture expert, told ETV Bharat.

What the government says

The scheme promotes the usage of machines and equipments such as, Super Straw Management System, Happy Seeder, Super Seeder, Smart Seeder, Surface Seeder, and Zero Till Seed cum Fertilizer Drill for in-situ management of crop residue and Balers and Straw Rakes for collection of straw for further ex-situ utilisation.

In a bid to enable efficient ex-situ management of paddy straw generated in these states, provisions have been made to establish projects for a paddy straw supply chain with financial assistance 65 per cent on the capital cost of machinery costing up to Rs 1.50 crores. The intervention aims at establishing a robust supply chain of paddy straw for various end-user industries in biomass power generation and biofuel sectors, the government earlier this year had informed.

Paddy stubble burning is mainly practiced in the Indo-Gangetic plains in the states of Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh due to the short window between the harvesting of paddy crop and sowing of the next Rabi crop.

Active fire events due to paddy residue burning are monitored using satellite remote sensing by the Consortium for Research on Agroecosystem Monitoring and Modelling from Space (CREAMS) Laboratory, Division of Agricultural Physics, Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) – Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI), New Delhi.

As per the report, the burning events detected in Punjab, Haryana, and Uttar Pradesh between September 15 and November 30 for the period from 2018 to 2024 is 75,514 (2018) 61,329 (2019), 91,835 (2020), 82,533 (2021), 56,600 (2022), 42,931 (2023), and 18,457 (2024). The overall reduction in paddy stubble burning in 2024, when compared with 2018, was 75.6 per cent, a Lok Sabha data states.

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