Farm fires down by 64% in Haryana in 4 yrs: Agriculture Secy

Tribune News Service

Hisar, November 10

Urging farmers to resort to crop residue management, the Additional Secretary, Union Agriculture Ministry, Dr Abhilaksh Likhi, said there was a significant reduction of 64 per cent in the number of incidents of burning of paddy residue in Haryana in the year 2020 compared to the year 2016.

Interacting with farmers during his visit to the Northern Region Farm Machinery Training and Testing Institute (FMTTI) in Hisar today, Dr Likhi called upon the farmers to adopt the management of their crop residue which helps bring down air pollution further. He also took farmers’ feedback while inspecting the machines and equipment used for in-situ and ex-situ crop residue management at Northern Zone Farm Machinery Training and Testing Institute.

Need to introduce drones in agriculture

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Drones and robots should be used in agriculture. In developed countries, robots are used for inter-cropping and spraying the fields. There is need for replacing traditional techniques with modern ones. —Abhilaksh Likhi, Additional secretary

The official stated that the incidents of paddy straw burning had also come down by 52 per cent and 23 per cent in UP and Punjab, respectively.

He informed the farmers that the Agriculture Department had introduced a Central scheme on crop residue management in Haryana, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh and Delhi in 2018-19 to addressing the problem of air pollution in Delhi and National Capital Region due to stubble burning.

He said under this scheme, financial assistance for the purchase of crop residue management machines was provided at 50% of the cost to individual farmers and at 80% of the project cost to cooperative societies of farmers, registered farmers societies, FPOs and panchayats for establishment of custom hiring centres of crop residue management machines.