Boota Singh on mission green

Archit Watts

Tribune News Service

Malout, October 15

Boota Singh, a farmer from Aspal village here, has become a source of inspiration for many other farmers in the area. He has been growing paddy in 23 acres for the past about 10 years, but has never burnt stubble.

These days, he is motivating other farmers as well and informing them about its benefits.

Boota has been selling his paddy stubble to the biomass power plant at Gaddan Dob village in neighbouring Fazilka district, earning money by doing this.

Telling his own experience, Boota Singh said, “After the harvesting of crop, we use reaper in the fields and then baler machines make bales, which are sold to the bio-mass power plants. Thereafter, the sowing of wheat crop is done using zero tillage machine or with happy seeder. It saves the expenditure incurred on levelling the field.”

He added, “The happy seeder technique is useful and the germination of seeds starts timely. Even the weeds are lesser in comparison to the wheat sown using traditional method.”

Boota said he never suffered any loss in the past about 10 years as there was no pest attack on the wheat crop.

“Actually, with stubble burning, several insects helpful in farming die in the fields and it also reduces the fertility of the soil,” he said.

Meanwhile, Baljinder Singh, chief agriculture officer, Muktsar, said apart from department officials, farmers like Boota Singh should come ahead to motivate others. “It will not just save the environment from air-pollution, but also keep the fertility of the soil intact,” he said.