It’s time to look beyond conventional farming

Tribune News Service

Jalandhar, March 1

The Agriculture Department officials in the district have been working towards encouraging farmers to adopt maize cultivation and do away with paddy sowing. Several workshops have also been held to guide farmers and motivating them to increase the area under maize. Groundwater depletion is considered as one of the results of paddy sowing in Punjab, which is why the farmers in the state are always asked to switch to sowing of other crops.

Dr Surinder Singh, Chief Agriculture Officer, said this year, the priority would be accorded to promote crop diversification. He said some improvement has already been witnessed with the increase in area under the maize crop, but a lot more improvement was still needed.

“This is a major issue. We have charted out a diversification plan and sent it to the government and we are trying that the farmers get maize seeds on subsidy,” he said.

The officer said the areas where stubble burning incidents were reported last year would be given more attention. “This year, we want to bring that down to negligible. We cannot allow air pollution to take a toll on our environment,” he said.

Switching to organic farming

Notably, the department has also been organising camps for the farmers at village level, where the farmers have been asked not to use the pesticides and fertilisers unnecessarily. The officer said, “Our target is to make the farmers adopt organic farming,” he said.

“The machinery that we have given to the farmers through panchayats or societies, should be utilised properly and maximum number of farmers are benefitted from the same,” he said. Notably, to prevent the stubble burning, a crop residue management scheme was launched three years ago by the Centre. The Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare had launched‘Promotion of Agricultural Mechanisation for In-situ Management of Crop Residue in the State of Punjab, Haryana, and Uttar Pradesh & NCT of Delhi’ for in-situ management of crop residue. The department’s agenda is to ensure that there are more number beneficiaries this year under the scheme.”