SAVES RS 1.55 LACS ON EIGHT ACRES OF LAND ANNUALLYUSES FARM MACHINERY ONLY ON SHARING BASIS
Mansa, Oct 23
32
years old Sukhjit , a computer graduate from Panjab University Chandigarh owing
8 acres of land in village Beeroke Kalan, has not put paddy stubble on fire in
his fields for the past four years. This time it would be his fifth year in row
wherein he will opt for direct sowing of wheat into the paddy stubble and save
upto Rs 1.55 lacs.
Four
years ago, after his brother's newborn son was diagnosed of suffering from
congenital disorder, doctors at the PGI Chandigarh told the family that it may
be due to increased use of farm chemicals. "We decided not to use any
chemical for farming and starting with saying no to stubble burning was our
first step," he says.
Earlier,
while Sukhjit spent Rs 1.80 lacs annually on the wheat and paddy cultivation, he
input cost has drastically reduced and now he spends only Rs 25000 annually on
both the crops. Besides saving monetarily, the fertility of his soil has
improved to such an extent that even a child can easily dig his fields as
compared to the hard soil surface one sees in the fields where stubble is put
on fire. He is expecting around 24 quintal per acre Basmati 1509 of yield this
year as compared to 16 to 19 quintals per acre for the same variety.
He also uses the bed plantation technique
(without puddling) for sowing paddy on ridges. Similarly, in wheat
sowing he uses SRI technique wherein he uses 5 kilo seeds in one acre of land
on the ridges. He doesn’t use any additional fertilizers for the crops and
rather resorts to indigenous ways of farming to fight against any of the plant
infections. He adds that the result of sowing on ridges both wheat and paddy
crop are excellent as the crop germinates earlier, requires lesser water and
almost no fertilizers and has higher yield. Ridges also allow him to use multi
cropping system and increase his income.
Sukhjit does not owe any expensive
agriculture implement such as Happy Seeder. Rather he uses it on sharing basis
with the farmer cooperative societies thereby reducing his agriculture input
and saves money.
Besides conventional wheat and paddy, by
the start of May he cultivates corn (60 to75 days crop) and moong (55 days
crop) together. He sells corn at Rs 23000 to Rs 24000 per acre for usage as
silage, known as achaar amongst dairy farmers, (used for making feed for milk
yielding animals) and Rs 35000 to Rs 40000 after drying it (used for grinding
into corn flour and as feed for poultry).
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