Tackling stubble-burning: Biogas & biochar options hit hurdle

Manav Mander

Ludhiana, October 30

To solve the problem of stubble-burning, experts at Punjab Agricultural University (PAU) came up with two options of producing biogas and biochar from crop residue. However, both options hit hurdle.

Biogas could not be produced from stubble as the government reportedly failed to give the subsidy, while the biochar technology did not get sufficient technical support.

The PAU had come up with a technology of producing biogas from crop residue using the dry fermentation.

In this technique, the residue left is used as manure, but due to the high cost, farmers have not been able to adopt it.

“The cost of setting up of a biogas plant is around Rs 3 lakh. The major hurdle is that no subsidy is provided for it,” said Dr Sarbjit Singh Sooch, principal scientist, Department of Renewable Energy Engineering, PAU.

Yet another technique developed by the PAU’s Department of Soils was producing biochar from stubble. The technology failed to get adopted by farmers as there was no technical support for setting up the plants.

Dr RK Gupta, principal soil chemist, Department of Soil Sciences, PAU, said the research work was completed, but it failed to kickstart at the ground-level due to the lack of technical support. Incidentally, Bihar is running this very successfully and it is available at 11 Krishi Vigyan Kendras.