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Tripple benefits of zero
tillage
LAHORE-The Extension Department of
the Punjab government is making a shortsighted and potentially
dangerous attempt to undermine the growing popularity of zero
tillage. Their motivation is ill-informed and stems out from
the fact that zero tilalge has been populated in Punjab by the
on-farm Water Management Department. It is a well known fact
that both these are bitter rivals. However, this alone does
not explain why the Extension Department is desperately trying
to check the growing popularity of zero tillage or no till (as
it is called in the US).
Zero tillage-whereby, crops in rotation are sown without the
conventional tillage associated with land preparation is a
radical departure from the previously held ideas that the more
you plough the better it is. Farmers in the USA first
developed this technology in the 60's and 70's primarily as a
method of meeting the sowing deadlines of various crops. As
time passed, the zero or no till methodology was refiend to a
point where it had completely surpassed conventional tillage
in terms of higher yields coupled with lower costs.
Imagine the chargin of the Extension Department when the Water
Management Department not only succeeded in proving that the
zero tillage not only saves water in the rice--wheat cropping
system in Punjab--but also increased the yield and reduces the
cost. It is a tripple benefit system for the farmers. Our
farmers may be illiterate and simple, but they are not fools,
who can be duped again and again.
Basmati rice and wheat are being grown on my farms in
Sheikhupura for the last 25 years through this cropping
pattern. The average yield of wheat prior to 1999 had always
been in the region of 25.32 maunds per acre, applying all
inputs, including fertilizers, pesticides-weedicides etc. The
primary reason for the low yield was late sowing which could
not be helped since. Basmati is late naturing rice. After
harvesting it, the field is ploughed 4 to 5 times to get rid
of the rice strubble and is made ready for sowing wheat, which
is by mid-December but it is sowed on my farms till end
December and sometimes early January.
In Sheikhupura rapid switchover to zero till is being
witnessed and this is not confined only to Punjab. In fact a
progressive farmer from Jaccobabad Sindh, after hearing, too,
has purchased a zero till drill from Daska and took it to his
land. Recently, the district government of Lahore has
purchased zero till drills for the use of local
Lahore farmers.
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