Chandigarh, July 23 Punjab Agriculture Minister Gurmeet Singh Khudian said on Wednesday that in an advancement of the government's efforts to conserve groundwater through sustainable agricultural practices, the state saw 11.86 per cent increase in area dedicated to direct seeding of rice (DSR) compared to last year.
He said paddy has been sown using water-conserving DSR technique at over 2.83 lakh acres this year, up from 2.53 lakh acres in the last year. He expressed hope that the area under DSR will rise further as paddy sowing is still going on.
The minister said the government has been offering Rs 1,500 per acre to farmers adopting the DSR method.
He said the financial assistance was transferred into the bank accounts of 24,032 farmers who adopted the DSR technique during the kharif season of 2024.
Minister Khudian reaffirmed the government's commitment of encouraging farmers to adopt sustainable agricultural practices. He also congratulated the Agriculture Department officials for promoting the water-saving method.
Administrative Secretary (Agriculture and Farmers Welfare) Basant Garg said that the Agriculture Department has taken various proactive steps to promote the direct seeding of rice.
The department has been organising awareness campaigns and farmer training camps to provide hands-on knowledge, besides conducting field demonstrations to showcase the technique's effectiveness and sensitise farmers about the advantages of DSR.
With a land area of only three per cent of the net cultivated land of the country, Punjab contributes 25-35 per cent of rice and 38-50 per cent of wheat to the central pool of food grain.
The state ranks fourth in the world in terms of productivity and first in India among all the other states. In neighboring Haryana, the paddy is currently sown over 34 lakh acres in Haryana.
Of this, 57 per cent of the area is under basmati, which matures two weeks later than the non-basmati type.
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