No threat of whiteflies in Jind, courtesy pesticide-free farming

Parvesh Sharma

Tribune News Service

Jind, August 2

At a time when whiteflies have been troubling majority of cotton farmers in the state in spite of repeated spraying of pesticides, farmers of Nidana village are expecting a bumper crop without the use of pesticides.

Thanks to their special campaign “Know insects before killing them”, they have been successful in keeping whiteflies at bay this year, as has the case for six years since the start of the campaign aimed at promoting pesticide-free farming.

“In all, 30 farmers of the village have been cultivating cotton without the use of pesticides since 2008. Like last year, this year too there’s been no whitefly attack on the crop sown on 300 acres. Farmers expect a bumper crop this year,” said Ranbir Malik, farmer from Nidana.

The campaign was started in 2008 by former Nidani Agriculture Development Officer Surender Dalal, who died in 2013. Farmers of five Nidana, Nidani, Joura, Lalit Khera and Radana villages have identified 204 insects, dividing them into vegetarian and non-vegetarian categories.

Their experiments have proved non-vegetarian insects eat vegetarian insects and leave the crop when they do not get vegetarian insects. These farmers have been pursuing farming without pesticides since 2008 and working as Mater Trainers (MT) to train other farmers.

“The whitefly attack has damaged cotton in many villages of the district. In some villages, farmers have started uprooting cotton because of the pest attack,” Phull Singh Sheokand, state vice-president of the Akhil Bharatiya Kisan Sabha.

Jind Deputy Director (Agriculture) Ram Partap Sihag said: “The department has formed special teams and spreading awareness about the techniques to protect crops from whiteflies.”