Area under paddy stubble burning in Punjab up despite number of machines almost doubling.
Jalandhar: Punjab farmers have sown 4.50 lakh hectares (lh) wheat area this time using Happy Seeders. This is nearly 13% of the total 35.08 lh planted under the rabi cereal crop in the state. Not bad, it would seem, for a relatively new technology, which allows wheat to be directly seeded in combine-harvested paddy fields without any need to burn leftover stubble or loose straw that is a source of environmental pollution.
But the 4.50 lh is below the 5.49 lh coverage, amounting to almost 16% of the total wheat area of 35.20 lh, that was achieved in the 2018-19 rabi season. This, despite the population of Happy Seeder machines in Punjab going up from around 9,000 to 16,000 in the current season. A single tractor-mounted Happy Seeder — which cuts and lifts the standing stubble, drills the wheat seeds into bare soil, and deposits the residue over the sown area as a mulch cover — can work 7-8 acres daily for 25-30 days during the rabi planting season. The 16,000 machines theoretically, then, should have covered 28-38 lakh acres or 11-15 lh, whereas they managed to do just about a third of that.
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