Farmers come forward to adopt straw mgmt methods in Karnal

Parveen Arora

Karnal, September 20

Joining hands with the district administration to control rising stubble-burning cases, farmers in Karnal have shown interest in getting in-situ and ex-situ machines on subsidy offered by the state government.

As per the data of the Department of Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare, so far 3,017 farmers and 124 custom hiring centres have applied for these machines, including straw baler, happy seeder, paddy straw chopper, multure, rotary, plough, super seeder, zero drill, hay rake, self-propelled crop reaper, and others.

“Last year, I got the crop residue cleaned with the help of a machine purchased by a farmer in a nearby village. Now, I have applied for the baler machine for stubble management,” said Rishipal, a farmer of the Nilokheri block.

“In-situ management involves incorporating the stubble into the soil with the help of crop residue management (CRM) machines, while ex-situ management involves lifting the stubble from the fields and supplying it to stubble-based industries,” said Dr Wazir Singh, Deputy Director Agriculture (DDA).

For establishing a custom hiring centre, 80 per cent subsidy is given, while 50 per cent is given to individual farmer. The majority of farmers have applied for baler, super seeder and happy seeder for CRM, he added.

“Presently, farmers have 219 straw baler sets, 109 happy seeders, 79 hydraulic reversible MB ploughs, 241 paddy straw choppers, 1,030 rotavators, 1,322 super seeders and other machines for stubble management. As many as 675 custom hiring centres are working in the district to manage crop residue through both in-situ and ex-situ methods,” said the DDA.

The government is also providing an incentive of Rs 1,000 per acre for in-situ and ex-situ management of paddy straw, he added.

There are several farmers who are earning profit from stubble management. “We purchase stubble from farmers in different villages and sell them to industries,” said Raj Kumar, a farmer involved in straw management.

“Our aim is to reduce the stubble-burning cases to zero, for which we have expedited the process of information education and communication activities. Farmers are being made aware of the ill-effects of stubble-burning as well as being educated about how they can earn profit by managing stubble. Teams have been constituted to monitor active fire locations,” said DC Anish Yadav.

Last year, the district witnessed a 65 per cent fall in stubble-burning cases as against 957 cases in 2021, the district had recorded 301 cases in 2022, said the DDA.