Agri Dept officials undertake field visits as stubble burning extends beyond paddy

Aakanksha N Bhardwaj

Jalandhar, January 16

Managing crop stubble burning is one of the most arduous tasks for the Agriculture Department in various districts. Cases of stubble burning are rising every year. Earlier, it was just paddy stubble, but in the last two-three years, there has been a significant rise in cases of wheat stubble burning too.

Kapurthala district officials have started making visits to different villages where there were no cases of stubble burning and to the ones where the maximum cases were reported last year.

Recently, the Chief Agriculture Officer (CAO), Kapurthala, along with Deputy Commissioner Captain Karnail Singh, visited the ‘Zero-Burning Village’ of Sherpur Dona and interacted with the farmers. In the village, not even a single case of crop stubble burning was reported this year. During the interaction, farmers told them that instead of burning the stubble, the residue was ploughed back instead into the fields. “The farmers said that the quality of the crop increased manifold after they didn’t burn the stubble,” Chief Agriculture Dr Balbir Chand said.

The official added that he had planned that the farmers who had shunned stubble burning will be called during the agricultural camps and asked to deliver lectures so that others could get motivated. “Teams will be formed, where farmers who opted for other methods instead of burning, will be made part of,” he added.

Balbir Chand along with other officials of the department also visited Lakhan Kalan, from where maximum cases of stubble burning were reported. Here, the farmers were asked to be supportive in protecting the environment and to ensure that by adopting such practices, they don’t end up depleting important nutrients of the soil which will ultimately affect the crop quality.

To tackle the problem, the Agriculture Department last year took the initiative of creating videos of farmers who have not burnt stubble for the past several years and sharing these with others through social media platforms.

Along with the videos, contact numbers of farmers were also shared so that those who want to adopt the method to manage the paddy stubble could discuss it in detail with the progressive farmers. The Agriculture Department was also putting videos on a YouTube channel, ‘Safal Kisan’, and circulating these among district farmers.