Mission Fateh Farmers evincing keen interest in Direct Seeding of Rice

Farmers evincing keen interest in Direct Seeding of Rice

S. A. S. Nagar, June 5:

In what could be described as the one of the primary objectives of Mission Fateh i.e. not to leave anyone in lurch owing to COVID-19 the State Government is not leaving farmers high and dry and is encouraging them to adopt the innovative techniques like the direct seeding of rice(DSR) keeping in view the fact that large number of migrants have gone back to their home towns.

Direct Seeding of Rice was initiated in village Derri in the district on Friday done under the guidance of Secretary Agriculture Mr Kahan Singh Pannu. While talking to farmers, Mr Pannu informed that every year around 27 lakh hectares of area in Punjab state is being cultivated under paddy crop out of which 20 lakh hectares area is under rice and 7 lakh hectares is under basmati rice.

Due to shortage of labour for transplanting of paddy following the epidemic of Covid 19, the Department of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare, Punjab has advised the farmers to sow the paddy crop by direct seeding of rice (DSR) on at most 20 percent of their cultivable area. The Government of Punjab has fixed the target to bring around 5 lakh hectares under DSR techinque this year but keeping in view the present situation and the increasing interest of farmers in DSR technique, this figure is expected to rise to 6-7 lakh hectares.

He told that the DSR techique results in 20-25 percent of saving of water and also cuts the cost of paddy cultivation by 6000 per acre. He further added that as per reports and research of PAU, Ludhiana experts, the yield from DSR is at par with paddy crop sown by conventional technique of transplanting. Mr Pannu appealed to the farmers that prior to sowing of paddy byDSR technique, the farmers must purchase weedicide and spray it within 24 hours of sowing the crop through DSR. He told that till date the Department of Agriculture and Farmers welfare, Punjab has given 4000 DSR machines and 600 paddy transplanting machines to farmers on subsidy.