Lawn — the outdoor living room
By Manish Kapoor
THE lawn, one of the most essential features of a modern garden, is the soul of landscape. It provides a feeling of rest, repose and relaxation and the amenity that it confers is in no way less than the colourful display of flowers or other garden adornments. It creates naturalistic effects that help to unify the landscape. It is not at all necessary to have a large piece of land to develop a lawn.

‘Use’ food surpluses for capital formation
By V. S. Mahajan
INDIAN agriculture perhaps never has had such a long spell of favourable weather as it had during the past 10 years without break which has boosted its food situation. Earlier normally two or three years of good monsoons would generally end up with draught which made the government to follow a more cautious policy towards storing of foodgrains.

Role of migrant labour in farming
By P.P.S. Gill
A PART of the success achieved in agriculture in Punjab can be apportioned to “time”. The Green Revolution, among other things, has made farmers conscious of the essence of time. This is evident from the stress laid by scientists on performing all farm operations on time. Delay can cause loss in terms of yield and incomes.

• Farm operations for November
  
  
  

Lawn — the outdoor living room
By Manish Kapoor

THE lawn, one of the most essential features of a modern garden, is the soul of landscape. It provides a feeling of rest, repose and relaxation and the amenity that it confers is in no way less than the colourful display of flowers or other garden adornments. It creates naturalistic effects that help to unify the landscape. It is not at all necessary to have a large piece of land to develop a lawn. It may cover only a few feet or it may extend to several acres. It can be horizontal, terraced or undulated. The shape and contour of the lawn is largely influenced by the site as well as certain fixed points such as the plinth of a building, the level of paths and roads.

Before establishing a lawn, the site must be thoroughly surveyed and natural grading and drainage be observed carefully. The land should be trenched to a depth of 2 feet so that the upper soil covered with old grass or rank vegetation is upturned and buried under the trenches. The method of trenching must be adopted in order to eliminate the growth of undesirable vegetation. During the coarse of trenching, stones, pebbles and brickbats should be picked up and removed. This trenched surface should then be roughly dressed and divided into small beds to facilitate thorough consolidation with water. The land should be left for about three weeks to allow any weed growth to reappear which should at this stage be completely eradicated. After weeding well-decomposed farmyard manure should be uniformly spread over the surface @ 50 ft3 per 1000ft2. The trenched surface should be levelled either by means of levelling instrument, or with the help of pegs and bricks.

The best season for making a good start is the months of May and June or a month earlier than the setting in of rains. The winter season should, however, be avoided. The most common plant material for planting a lawn is “Doob grass” also known as “Calcutta grass” or “Bermuda grass” (cynodon dactylon). The fine-textured hybrid “Bermuda grass” is brighter green in colour and suitable for sunny areas. Other commonly used grasses are “Selection-I” and “Turf green” that are erect and non-spreading. “Mexican grass” or “Japanese grass” (Zoysia japonica and Z. tenuifolia) forms a thick mat and is used as carpet grass. Some newly introduced grasses are “Fescue grass” (Fesctuca) which is bright and quick growing, “Dichondera repens” having small round and deep green leaves and “Paspalum confugatum, P. dilataturn” are good for ground cover and thrives in shade. “Axonopus affinis” is best for sandy or light soils and grows well under shade.

There are different methods of planting but the dibbling of sprigs of grassroots or stolen is one of the best and easiest methods of planting a lawn. The grassroots are dibbled closely, 5 cm from centre to centre. A top dressing of well-decomposed farmyard manure, screened through 12 mm-mesh sieve should be applied and surface rolled with a light wooden roller. The newly planted grass should be immediately watered by putting a “rose” on the hose mouth. The subsequent watering should be light but regular, depending upon weather conditions. Seed or “Doob grass” can also be sown, but it takes long time to germinate. About 500 gm of seed is sufficient for 200mt2.

Now-a-days one can even spread readymade natural turn in the form of thick rolled carpet of grass of convenient length and breadth over a well-levelled area.

The first mowing of the new law should not be postponed longer than it is absolutely necessary. A lawn covers thickly and evenly, if mowing is applied soon after dibbled grass has taken roots and turned green. Many promising new lawns have been spoiled by lack of care in the first few months. Local depressions are likely to occur in the newly laid lawns which become more visible after each mowing. Dressing them with a mixture of screened garden soil and farmyard manure rectified these depressions. The mowing should be frequent depending upon the season, but precaution should be taken that the cut is not too low. The growth of weeds should be closely watched, and should be removed as soon as they are noticed. In northern plains the common weeds are “motha or nut grass” (cyprus rotundus), “dudi” (euphorbia thymifolia), “kans“ (saccharum spontaneum) and “portulaca oleracea”. The most commonly used selective herbicide is 2, 4-D which is effective in killing broad-leafed weeds. Top dressings with 15 gm of ammonium sulphate or 8 gm of urea per mt2 once in October and again in December would be very beneficial in keeping the lawn fresh and green during the winter months.

The lawns should be rejuvenated annually during the month of May. While performing this operation the lawn should be cut low and top dressed with a mixture of screened manure, garden soil and sand (1:1:2). The lawn may be renovated once in three years during the months of May-June by scrapping the grass cover and top dressing the surface with the above mixture.

Frost injury to the lawn can be avoided if the grass is sprayed with water in the evening during frosty days. Fairy ring disease caused by soil borne fungi like “marasmius ordeades”, “psalliota compestris,” etc. turns the grass brown and dead in circular rings varying from a few centimetre to a metre. Spraying Blitox (3gm/1)or Bordeaux mixture can control it.

‘Use’ food surpluses for capital formation
By V. S. Mahajan

INDIAN agriculture perhaps never has had such a long spell of favourable weather as it had during the past 10 years without break which has boosted its food situation. Earlier normally two or three years of good monsoons would generally end up with draught which made the government to follow a more cautious policy towards storing of foodgrains. Such storage even otherwise was needed to meet the demand from perpetually deficit areas whose demand during lean years would further rise.

The situation during the past decade has, however, been very different with year after year there was a bumper harvest resulting in ever-rising pressure on storage where limited capacity made it difficult to cope with. Under these conditions it was but natural that a large quantity of foodgrains are stored in the open. This has caused a considerable damage and rendered a large quantity of grains unfit for human consumption.

This loss runs into several hundred crores of rupees. And the irony is that while this is happening, a large number of people are suffering from malnutrition and do not possess enough purchasing capacity to buy grains.

Surely something is wrong with the system and it calls for rethinking to restore balance in stocks of grains up to the safe limit and use the excess available for meeting the consumption need of the people below the poverty line.

And this can be best ensured through payment of wages in kind mainly to workers employed in rural capital formation activities like construction of roads, digging of irrigation channels and undertaking allied activities. In other words, such gainful employment avenues would open opportunities for those who are currently without regular employment or earning meagre wages not sufficient enough to buy grains and other daily needs, and at the same time it would help the rural areas to narrow down gaps in communication, irrigation and other vital areas.

Further to help workers to cash their daily wages into kind, support should be forthcoming from the public distribution system which by now covers practically all rural areas where additional grains as per the requirement over their normal needs could be stored and made available to workers employed in capital formation activities, where they could surrender their coupons against daily wages issued by the authorities and obtain their requirement of grains and other essential items.

In other words, at the end of the day workers would be issued coupons which though would record their daily wages in rupees, yet these would be encashable at public distribution shops to meet their daily needs. Apart from grains a few other essential items would also be available.

To facilitate smooth functioning of this system more shops would have to be opened as well as manpower needs of the existing shops would have to strengthened. This in itself would result in creation of more jobs.

It should not be mandatory that workers collect their requirements every day. They could do so at convenience when their family members could visit these shops during the day and get the required items after the surrender of coupons.

As the system works and workers’ basic needs are adequately met, it could subsequently be converted into part payment in cash and part payment in kind. Thus, in addition to their ration needs, workers could also buy other items from the open market against cash received. As well as a system of thrift should be encouraged where a part of cash received could be regularly collected and deposited in the post office account of the individual concerned to meet emergency situations.

As by now panchayats have started functioning practically in every village, we should use this institution also to help in the functioning of the food security system where each panchayat should be enabled to create its own food storage facility. This would not only help meet emergency situations but would also help cut down heavy cost spent on constructing mega storage facilities as well as on their maintenance and management.

With the functioning of such decentralised system of storage, pressure on central and state godowns would be substantially reduced leading to high saving in cost as well as better distribution of grains. The staff rendered surplus in this way could easily be absorbed in the expanding operation of public distribution system.

It is well known that one of the principal factors obstructing the growth of rural areas is their poor communication network. As a massive cost is involved in creating this system, by deploying manpower below the poverty line under the scheme of capital formation the country would be able to tackle this complex problem to a large extent and thereby reduce the urban-rural gap.

Fortunately surplus foodgrains had started emerging right from the time the country entered the globalisation phase which has helped to keep down the cost of living for an average family. If this safety net had not been available one can well imagine its adverse impact on the gains from globalisation.

This system of globalisation could be made even more functional and beneficial through opening the frontiers of our rural areas through improving the network of communication systems.

Thus, this is a more positive approach to food surpluses which would help their reaching to the poorest of the poor through putting them in productive jobs of capital formation; raise their earning capacity for providing access to these surplus foodgrains which with enhanced purchasing power they would no longer find it difficult to buy; reduce their malnutritional level; help the rural areas in creating essential capital assets the absence of which is currently mainly responsible for their isolation as well as low farm productivity; and help the nation in cutting down a very large unproductive expenditure incurred at present on maintaining large buffer stocks of foodgrains for which there is not enough space.

Thus, the programme of rural capital formation, if carefully worked out, would yield long-term capital gains to the country and most importantly it would provide very essential capital assets in rural areas.

Role of migrant labour in farming
By P.P.S. Gill

A PART of the success achieved in agriculture in Punjab can be apportioned to “time”. The Green Revolution, among other things, has made farmers conscious of the essence of time. This is evident from the stress laid by scientists on performing all farm operations on time. Delay can cause loss in terms of yield and incomes.

All on-farm operations, preparing soil, application of fertilisers, irrigation, spray of plant protection chemicals, harvesting, post-harvests care, and marketing are to be performed as per a recommended time frame. Deviations are at farmers’ own peril. He repeats these for the next crop. There is no breather. This puts him under stress. He has to keep pace with time.

To be working with clock-like precision has been facilitated, to a large

extent, by the presence of “bhaiyas”: the omnipresent migrant labour from rural areas of other states, predominantly Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. They come from West Bengal and Orissa as well.

It is natural that such a large presence of migrant labour will make a social, economic and psychological impact. Consequently, subterranean

currents of social uneasiness are discernible in rural Punjab. What are these impacts? Is there a similar impact back home from where migrants originate? The answer to both is yes. The effect is both ways. Yadwinder Kaur indicates this in a study on the subject. She worked for her master’s degree in extension education, supervised by senior rural sociologist, Dr A. K. Gupta, at Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana. The study looked at the role and contribution of migrant labour in Punjab and in its home states. It is essentially, a rural-to-rural area migration.

Yadwinder took cognizance of three factors: problems faced by migrants,

problems perceived by local labour, and how employer-farmer looked at the effect and impact of the presence of migrant labour. A sample of 150, representing equal number in each of the three categories, was interviewed. It was a random selection done in Ludhiana and Amritsar spread over 10 villages in two blocks.

Migrants, by and large, are in the 20-30 age group, landless, illiterate, married with large families, meager means and in indebtedness. In Punjab, despite initial problems of language and adjustment, they have learnt to adapt food habits, get shelter from employer-farmer and receive higher wages than they would have got back home.

The local labour is jealous, considers migrants as poachers living off the jobs and wages, which should have accrued to them. Their perception is, if nothing else, “bhaiyas” have infected them with the habit of consuming “jarda”.

Farmer-employer is doubly blessed: he pays less wages, has hands to work for 24 hours and does not depend on unreliable local labour which easily got job in the non-farm sector and worked on farms when faced with urban lay off. Locals were ever on the lookout for other outlets. Migrant labour returns to roost in same village and with the same farmers who directly negotiate wages. Though there were reports from Gurdaspur where a racket was busted how labour was exploited in less-privileged states and brought to Punjab to be sold as “slaves”. Though primarily employed in brick-kilns some farmers were reportedly involved in that “human trade”.

The National Human Rights Commission had taken cognizance of certain complaints received by it from Bihar and directed Punjab to take steps. Though outside the purview of the study in question, it deserves attention.

The last two decades have seen a major influx into Punjab. But the migrant labour has benefited two states. Its spread is in urban and rural areas. It gets assured employment. In Punjab, over a period of time, the migrants have developed a social network with their fellow natives either due to geographical proximity back home or due to caste factor. A majority comes from intermediate caste and tribes; mostly Hindus. Why the same labour returned to the same farmer-employer was a bond that develops. Even the latter find the migrants more hard working, more responsible and responsive and, perhaps, more loyal than the local labour.

Thus, when one talks of importance of “time” in scientifically developed agriculture, timely operations, sowing and harvesting have become possible because of “bhaiyas” as farmers address them.

Their large presence, particularly in Ludhiana, the state’s industrial hub and epicentre of agricultural research and development, needs to be viewed with caution. On the strength of sheer numbers, the migrants can one day upset the electoral equilibrium and upstage the local politicians. Punjab also owes slums in urban human settlements to these very migrants who live in sub-human conditions. Policy planners are yet to learn to include slums and slum-dwellers in their plan schemes and demand funds correspondingly. The price being paid by the Punjabis whose economy the “bhaiyas” now operate at a cheap rate but a high cost in terms of shrinking civic amenities and healthcare.

Farm operations for November

Wheat:
— Sowing of long-duration varieties of wheat like PBW-343, WH-542, PDW-233, PBW-34 and PBW-154 should be completed up to the second and third week of November, respectively. After this, prefer to sow PBW-373 and PBW-138. Under rainfed conditions grow PBW-396, PBW-299 and PBW-175.

— Progressive Farming, PAU