Son’s efforts bear fruit, man shuns stubble burning

Parvesh Sharma

Tribune News Service

Barnala, September 18

Following the request of his son, a farmer of Kothe Jalal Ke near Handiaya in Barnala district has decided not to burn paddy stubble on 60 acres. Now, he has adopted the crop residue management system.

After completing his BTech around four years ago, Parbhat Kiran Singh made his farmer father Ajaib Singh aware of the ill-effects of setting fields on fire.

Convinced with his son, Ajaib Singh decided not to burn paddy stubble in his fields and took a machine on rent from Jalandhar to mix crop residue in the soil. Management of stubble has also shown positive result as the yield of crops per acre has increased.

“It was not easy for me to shun stubble burning to clear the fields. But after my son encouraged me to adopt the crop residue management system, I did away with the practice. On the initial stage, it was a big task for me, but as soon as it started showing positive results, I also adopted it on the leased land,” said Ajaib Singh.

While sharing more details, he said their family owns 13 acres and almost every year, they took around 47 acres on annual lease for the cultivation of paddy, potato, onions, maize and other cash crops.

He said besides saving the environment, his decision had also helped him monetarily as it increased the yield and reduced the requirement of fertilizers.

“Earlier, we had to use urea fertilizer and potash for potato crop in large quantity. As we started mixing stubble in the soil, there is no use of potash. Consumption of urea has also gone down. The yield of onion and potato crops has also increased,” said the farmers.

Barnala DC Tej Partap Singh Phoolka lauded the efforts of Ajaib Singh and his son. The DC appealed to other farmers to shun the unhealthy practice of stubble burning.