Farmers to get online training on paddy cultivation without pesticides

Aakanksha N Bhardwaj

Tribune News Service

Jalandhar, June 28

Under the Pesticides Free Punjab Campaign, NGO Dr Surender Dalal Keet Saksharta Mission will be holding an online farm field class on cultivation of paddy without spraying pesticides which will be held on Tuesday, ie, June 30.

The class will be held from 6pm – 7pm live, that too from the fields. It will be organised on the Google Meet app, which the farmers have been advised to download on their mobile phones. Ashok Kumar, Punjab coordinator of the NGO said it would be for the first time that an online class would be held for farmers. “A link to attend class has also been given to the farmers and they can join the class by just clicking on it,” he said. Ashok Kumar also held a practice session of 10 minutes at 7 pm today so that the farmers get accustomed to the procedure.

The mission has to its credit another first too. In a first-of-its kind, since three years, this NGO named ‘Dr Surinder Dalal Keet Saksharta Mission’, will not teach farmers in classes or in closed rooms, but in the fields and their farms to practically tell them why they do not need pesticides in their farms. The society selects those farms which are near the main road as it is convenient for participants to reach and participate.

The NGO is named after a Haryana-based scientist, Dr Surinder Dalal, who died in 2003 and gave a theory to farmers that the amount of fertilisers and pesticides that they were using in the fields was not required.

Dr Dalal’s Theory

After research, Dr Dalal told farmers about the integrated pest management (IPM) and said they should not spray pesticides in the fields. He said it was important to know the insect before killing it.

Though it is a Haryana-based NGO, farmers of the state, after getting impressed by thoughts started giving education to fellow farmers.

The training has been started under the ‘Pesticide-Free Punjab Campaign’.