Shaurya Sharma.
Fatehgarh Sahib, July.11, 2020: An innovative move of the district Agriculture department “A kissan Khet Mazdoor Milni initiative” has yielded good results as it solved the problem of the farming community of the shortage of specialized labour for paddy transplantation constraint due to migration and COVID-19 and the district succeeded in transplanting 98% of the non Basmati paddy. The transplantation of Basmati paddy will be completed on time, said Dr. Inderpal Singh Sandhu Chief Agriculture Officer.
He said that to find the solution with limited resources and labour, the district agriculture department had launched an innovative move “A kissan Khet Mazdoor Milni initiative”, the department reached out to the farmers across the district and to apprised them about the prevailing situation of shortage of labour and encourage them to use the local available labour in their region for paddy transplantation. He said this move proved game changer as in most of the villages rates were settled with 5 % addition with last year rates with mutual consensus.
He said that further the farmers were encourage for diversification of crops and succeeded in persuading them. He said that on approximately 5000 hectare the paddy was sown under DSR technique through direct sowing machines under the supervision of technical experts and it benefited financially. He said the rest of the paddy was transplanted with locals as well as the migrant labour, who returned to the States. He said the vision of Secretary Agriculture KS Pannu proved beneficial as he instructed the direct sowing machine manufacturers to make certain technical changes in the wheat sowing machines like happy seeders and these could be used for direct sowing.