Keeping in view of the serious problem of increasing pollution levels due to burning of paddy straw in Haryana, an evaluation of technology for proper management of paddy straw would be done by Agricultural Engineering and Technology College of Chaudhary Charan Singh Haryana Agricultural University (CCSHAU) at Hisar.
Apart from this, the University would also develop and test carrot digger equipment. A spokesman of the University on Wednesday said that these two projects also included making popular the suitable machines for the management of paddy straw.
He said that after the paddy cultivation, the farmers harvesting the wheat crop are forced to burn the paddy straw so as to early vacate the farm. This not only increases the problem of pollution and global warming but the fertility of the soil is also depleted due to the loss of micro elements and carbon.
He said that machines like straw baler, hay-rack, and fodder cutting machine are available for the management of paddy straw.
The spokesman said that under this project, suitable machines of straw management would be popularized among the farmers after evaluating various aspects like their efficiency, economic feasibility and power consumption. This project has been given under the National Food Security Mission of the Central Government.
At present, no machine or equipment is available for digging carrot and it is either done by the farmer himself or they get it done through labourers. He said that there are two major problems in digging carrot with the present technique. One, it takes more time and secondly the farmers have to bow for a longer time while doing this work, said he.