MITIGATION OF STUBBLE BURNING THROUGH CUSTOM HIRING CENTRES IN PUNJAB
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Date
2020
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Publisher
ICAR-NDRI, KARNAL
Abstract
Rice–wheat cropping system of the South Asia is labour, water, capital and energy intensive and
become less profitable as the availability of these resources diminishing. This cropping system is dominant
in most Indian states, such as Punjab, Haryana and U.P etc. India produces more than 500 million tons
(Mt) of crop residues annually. Generation of cereal residues is highest in Uttar Pradesh (53 Mt) followed
by Punjab (44 Mt) and West Bengal (33 Mt) etc Residue burning Punjab 19.65MT is ranked first followed
by U.P. 11.92MT, Haryana 9.08MT. In Indian agriculture mechanical power is largely consumed by
mainly large farmers. Therefore in order to bring farm machinery available to small/marginal farmers,
concept of Custom Hiring Centers is developed. The CHCs providing farm equipments on rental basis to
farmers, who cannot afford to purchase costly equipments. The proposed study will be carried out
purposively in Punjab state. Out of twenty two districts three districts (Ludhiana, Sangrur, Moga) was
selected purposively due to highest stubble burning in last five years and highest number of primary
agricultural co-operative society that provide custom hiring services to farmers, then from each district two
blocks was selected randomly. Subsequently, three villages from each block were randomly selected.
Finally from each village 10 farmers were selected randomly. For this study the respondents was the
farmers who are taking services from the custom hiring centres for at least one year. Thus total sample size
for present study was 180 farmers. Data were collected through well-structured and pre-tested interview
schedule. The study revealed except burning, management of crop residue with happy seeder/ Zero till drill
and removal of crop residue from field are major practices followed by the farmers. Most of the farmers
had medium utilization of custom hiring centres for mitigation of stubble burning, happy seeder and paddy
straw chopper machines was the most utilized by the farmers for management of stubble. Majority of the
farmers had favorable attitude towards custom hiring centres, also farmers perceived that Machines having
high demand during the peak seasons should be more in number in the societies. Those machines which
are of least demand should be replaced by machines with high demand. Majority of the farmers had
medium level of training need for stubble management. so CHCs and other agencies should organized
more training programme on residue management in collaboration with ICAR research Institutes,
Agriculture universities, Veterinary university and KVKs. Major strength of CHCs is that it help in
reducing cost of cultivation and major weakness of CHCs is that High initial cost in establishment of
CHCs and major opportunity of CHCs is that farmers are independence in choosing required machine and
Major threat of CHCs is that Poor infrastructure available to most of farmers in establishment of CHCs.