Paddy farmers eye mechanical sowing to save on labour cost

SOWING UNDER THIS SYSTEM WILL COMMENCE FROM MAY 20

BATHINDA : As farmers are expecting a sharp rise in farm labourers’ demand to charge up to ₹6,000 per acre for paddy sowing this season, direct seeding of rice (DSR), which for the first time comes with an incentive of ₹1,500 per acre by the Punjab government, is getting more attention.

DSR ‘tar-wattar’ (good soil moisture), a low-cost mechanical sowing technique to reduce water footprint in the cultivation of water-guzzling rice by 20%, was indigenously developed by scientists of Ludhiana-based Punjab Agricultural University (PAU). Sowing under this mechanical system will commence from May 20 where pregerminated seeds are directly drilled in the fields with a tractor-powered machine under the water-conservation technique with no nursery preparation or transplantation unlike the conventional methods of sowing.

The Punjab government has been pushing the technique as an alternative to the traditional method as besides water conservation, the DSR also cuts the labour input cost. During field trials, the DSR was done on 23,500 hectares in 2019 and the area under this technique jumped to 5.4 lakh hectares in 2020. Last year, mechanical sowing was done on nearly 6 lakh hectares and the state agriculture department plans to take it to 10 lakh hectares in the 2022-23 kharif season.

Agriculture experts say while there was no adverse impact on the yield, farmers can save more than ₹3,000 per acre of labour cost input for sowing by switching to mechanical sowing.

According to the official data, in 2021-22 kharif period, more than 26 lakh hectares area of Punjab was under cultivation of non-basmati varieties and rice growers of the state depend heavily on labourers from Bihar and Uttar Pradesh for sowing.

Farmers in Muktsar, Sangrur, Bathinda and other districts say the farm labourers are demanding ₹6,000 per acre against last year’s ₹3,500-4,200, besides sundry expenses.

Harcharan Singh, who owns 7 acres at Gurusar in Muktsar district, said the new technique has the potential to improve the economic condition of paddy growers, but a farmer needs to be vigilant in the first 21 days for weed management.

PAU principal agronomist MS Bhullar said the success of DSR ‘tar-wattar’ can be gauged from the adoption of the technique, which saw a surge of 96% in 2021 in comparison to 2019 during the trial run. When it was officially launched in 2020, there was no financial assistance but the area under the DSR increased with teething problems, he said.