Spraying solutions to stem stubble burning in Haryana
The Hindu
Bengaluru-based firm is providing technology to aid farmers spray decomposers over an unprecedented 5 lakh acres
There’s a different sort of machine at work in Bhupinder Singh’s 30-acre farm off the Delhi-Karnal highway.
The boom sprayer, as it’s called, looks like a hybrid between a tractor and an autobot from the Transformers; its definitive features are two 20-feet booms that spread out like outstretched wings. On them are equally spaced nozzles that spray bio-decomposers on the freshly harvested rice field.
The decomposers are a powder mixed in water meant to accelerate the process of turning rice stubble into compost. Untreated rice straw takes 4-8 weeks to disintegrate which is too long for the average farmer to wait to be able to sow the winter wheat crop. The other option is to employ farm labour, who will cut the stalk and pile it into bundles, but that’s expensive and unaffordable for more than 95% of the farmers.