In a bid to promote crop persification in the state by maximizing the profit of cotton cultivators, the Punjab Chief Minister Mr. Parkash Singh Badal has given his nod to embark ‘Cotton Mechanization Program’ in the cotton belt by introducing Pneumatic planters, cotton picking machines and high yielding varieties of seed besides setting up a “Centre of Excellence of Cotton” at Bathinda. Disclosing this here today a spokesperson of the Chief Minister’s Office said that the file regarding this was cleared by the Chief Minister here today.The project primarily aims at maximizing the profit of the cotton cultivators, reducing the input cost by overcoming the problem of expensive labor and reducing the process of cotton cultivation to pave way for high yield of wheat crop. Under the ambitious program the Punjab Agriculture University and the state Agriculture Department in tandem with renowned Agro companies like John Deer, Bayer India and others would conduct adaptive trails on 1500 acres of land in villages near Malout by practicing High Density Cotton cultivation, in which seven packets of cotton seeds were sown instead of existing two over one acre of land. The service providers of M/s John Deer would sow the cotton crop with the Pneumatic planters to be supplied by the company whereas M/s Bayer India would import Growth regulator and Defoliant Chemical, to be supplied free of cost to the farmers for ensuring one time picking of the cotton yield.
In order to encourage the farmers for adopting High Density Cotton Cultivation the state government would provide a subsidy of Rs 4000 per acre to the farmers under the program. Apart from it M/s John Deer would also provide six cotton picking machines so as to ensure the smooth picking of cotton in the fields. Likewise, the state government would also set up a Cotton Cleaner at Malout Grain Market at a cost of Rs 1 crore besides signing a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the m/s Monsanto for establishing a Centre of Excellence of Cotton at Bathinda, which would help in developing new varieties of Cotton and focus on inventing new techniques of cotton cultivation. Similarly for ensuring better Agronomic practices to benefit the farmers, M/s Bayer India would fund research project of the PAU spread over 20 acres of land, which would emphasis on the development of new cotton seeds best suited for the state. It might be recalled the state government along with these private firms had already conducted the trial of this program last year in which trials of cotton picking and cleaning were conducted over 50 acres of land in villages near Abohar. The trial had produced desirable results as the yield of cotton had witnessed an increase ranging from 30 to 70% besides eliminating a major problem of the cotton cultivator regarding the shortage of labour. Likewise, after plucking the Cotton the farms were ready for sowing wheat crop in the month of November, which resulted in enhanced yield of the food grain. Overwhelmed by the success of this trial the farmers were now ready to replicate this model over an enlarged area.