Pathankot free of farm fires, courtesy YouTube channel

Tribune News Service

Ravi Dhaliwal

Pathankot, October 27

The Pathankot district administration’s novel modus operandi to educate farmers on the disadvantages of burning paddy stubble is throwing up rich dividends with no farm fires recorded in the entire district so far.

Experts say traditionally, the district was placed at the lower end of the spectrum as far as farm fires were concerned.

“Not many fires were recorded in the past. However, this time we vowed to make it a 100 per cent farm fire free district,” said Deputy Commissioner Harbir Singh. This is in stark contrast to other districts where such fires are raging despite the best efforts of respective administrations.

Months before the paddy was to be harvested, the DC had called a meeting of various departments. Farmer unions were also invited and a broad consensus was chalked out. The gist was to educate farmers about the ill-effects of stubble-burning through technology.

“Farm melas and long speeches were consigned to the backburner. We knew such tactics and techniques seldom enthused and educated farmers in the past. The modern era is technology-driven. We started a YouTube channel called “Meri Kheti, Mera Maan.” Under this programme, smartphones were the channel through which we sent a message against stubble-burning to households. More than 50,000 people watched “Meri Kheti, Mera Maan” on YouTube. In Pathankot, the Gujjar (nomad) population lives in large numbers. We also encouraged them to pick up stubble directly from the fields of agriculturists and use it as fodder to feed animals. They have been pivotal to our success,” said the DC.

Farmers now no longer had to trudge long distances to attend farm melas (fairs), which in any case were monotonous in nature. They could sit in the confines of their homes and get the benefits of direct seeding.

An agriculture officer said YouTube was extensively used to tell the farming community about the direct seeding process, a lot of time and labour is saved as sowing of seeds is done directly in fields.

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