Minister of Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare Radha Mohan Singh has said hundreds of millions of waste produced in India comes from agriculture and agricultural enterprises. According to statistics, 70% of the waste is used in industrial sector and as domestic fuel. The remaining waste can be converted into bio-components and bio fuels and can also be used in the generation of energy. While addressing National Conference on “Potential of Waste in Energy Generation and its Challenges” organized by the Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers’ Welfare and Indian Federation of Green Energy (IFGE) today he emphasized the need to eliminate pollution caused by the burning of crop residues and said that the poisonous gas generated by it affects human health and destroys soil nutrients. He informed that the government is providing subsidy @50-80% for crop residue management machinery.
These machines help farmers in mixing crop residue with soil to make it more productive. Farmer groups are being provided financial assistance @80% of the project cost for establishing Farm Machinery Banks for Custom Hiring of crop residue management machinery. A provision of Rs 1151.80 crores for two years has been made under this scheme for states like Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and NCR.He further informed that the management of crop residue in the field will help the soil become more fertile thereby resulting in savings of Rs 2000 per hectare from the farmer’s manure cost. By making palette from crop residue, it can be used for power generation. Under the sub mission on agricultural mechanization, 40% subsidy is given on straw rake, straw baler, loader etc. Through this, crop residue is collected and bales are made out of it so that it’s easy to carry to crop residue palette to power generation plants.The Minister said that the Agricultural Engineering Division of the ICAR has done remarkable works in the area of bio-energy for biogas production from paddy straw biomass.He appealed to the farmers not to burn crop residue thereby helping protect human health and environment.