Sangrur farmers shun stubble burning

摘要

Despite of the ban being imposed by National Green Tribunal (NGT) on stubble burning from the last three years, majority of farmers are still burning the straw. However, there are farmers who have stopped putting a matchstick to paddy residue and areembracing new techniques and practices. It has been seven years that Sukhjinder Singh S/o Jagjit Singh of village Kanoi, district Sangrur, stopped burning paddy straw and started using Happy Seeder to sow wheat in his 18 acres of land. In 2011, Jagdeep Singh his close friend from the same village ignited him to give up burning and sow his wheat using Happy Seeder. Sukhjinder Singh was growing high yielding paddy varieties like PUSA44 from last one decade, which have a high straw load. In a dilemma, thatwhether a machine can sow wheat in so much of loose straw covering the soil or whether his crop will germinate properly or not, he decided to try sowing wheat using Happy Seeder in only four acres of his land. His labourer used sticks to manually spread the loose straw in his four acres of land and he did the sowing using Happy Seeder.