At a time Punjab is witnessing a rising number of stubble burning incidents, Pathankot is the only district which has not seen a single farm fire, so far, this season.
The state Agriculture Department attributed it to the massive awareness drive launched by the District Administration against paddy straw burning — like holding awareness camps, launching a YouTube channel, forming WhatsApp groups of villagers. All this has resulted in the cooperation of farmers in making the district free of farm fire, said the agriculture official.
Pathankot Chief Agricultural Officer Amrik Singh said: “We had set a target this season that there should be no stubble burning incident in the district. And so far, no such incident has been reported.” The District Administration was keen that there should be not even a single incident of crop residue burning this season which starts from September 15. Pathankot, a border district, saw 28 farm fires in 2016, 12 in 2017, nine in 2018, four in 2019, 11 in 2020 and six in 2021. Pathankot grows paddy over 28,500 hectares of land and generates around 1.35 lakh metric tonne of stubble every year. The agriculture department found the solution to stubble burning through its use as fodder for milch animals and encouraged cattle owners, mainly nomad Gujjars, to collect it from fields.
Singh said that the paddy growers are getting Rs 2,500 to Rs 3,000 per acre by selling crop residue to cattle owners, adding that it helped to a great extent in solving the problem of stubble management. Before the start of harvesting season, officials of the agriculture department identified the hotspots where farm fires used to take place and persuaded the farmers of these areas not to set the crop residue on fire. As many as 70 farm awareness camps were held to motivate farmers not to set the crop residue on fire and even pledges were administered against stubble burning, he said.
To ensure messages against stubble burning reach maximum farmers, the department also rolled out a YouTube channel, 'Meri Kheti Mera Maan'. More than 120 videos of experts highlighting the crop residue management machines were uploaded, Singh said, adding that more than 67,000 people have viewed them. Moreover, WhatsApp groups of farmers at block level were also formed to encourage them not to burn the paddy straw, he said.
Apart from the awareness drive, as many as 201 crop residue management machines were also sanctioned, he said. With this, 306 such machines are now available in the district for stubble management, said Singh. Mobile vans were also deployed in the district to persuade farmers not to burn stubble, he said.
The official of the agriculture department also said that school students were also made aware about the ill-effects of stubble burning.