Kaithal: The Agriculture Department with Krishi Vigyan Kendra organised a kisan mela here yesterday to generate awareness against stubble burning and propagate scientific options to manage crop residue.
Dr Gurbachan Singh, Chairman, Agriculture Scientists Recruitment Board (ASRB), informed farmers about the adverse impact of stubble burning on the environment and human health. He advised the farmers to adopt resource conservation technologies and use crop residue for soil health improvement, reducing pollution, increasing productivity and making agriculture sustainable. The farmers were administered oath against stubble burning.
Dr KP Singh, VC, CCSHAU, Hisar, urged the farmers to use the crop residue as mulch to enhance soil nutrients for the next crop.
The highlight of the programme was the Farmers to Farmers Dialogue (F2FD) in which farmers from Punjab shared their experience on the Direct Seeded Rice (DSR) technique that saves water and other resources. In Punjab, paddy over 4 lakh hectares is cultivated using this technique compared to 25,000 hectares in Haryana.
Dr Rajbir Singh, Director, Agricultural Technology Application Research Institute,(ATARI), PAU, Ludhiana, urged the farmers to adopt mechanised transplantation of rice to overcome scarcity of labour.
Farmers were given live demonstration on sowing wheat using seeders, bailers and other machinery. More than 1,500 farmers from Punjab and Haryana participated in the programme .