The specialised zero-tillage seed drill, which could sow seeds in fields without ploughing it, was introduced by the Mexico-based International Maize and Wheat Improvement Centre (CIMMYT) in Pakistan much before it was brought into India. Yet, the zero-tillage system of cultivation, one of the key technologies under the environment-friendly conservation agriculture, has proved a bigger success here than it did in Pakistan.
The reasons are several and have been documented in a paper included in a book that carries world’s 20 major success stories in farm development. Entitled Millions Fed: Proven Successes in Agricultural Development, the book was commissioned by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and has been put together and brought out by the Washington-based International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
The prototype of the zero-tillage seed drill given by the CIMMYT to Pakistan in the early 1980s and to India in 1989, needed to be worked upon to develop models suitable for local conditions. This was duly done by the public farm research systems of both the countries. But the effective public-private partnership in close association with farmers and local administrations helped India develop better and more cost-effective models of the drill compared to Pakistan. This triggered the take-off of this technology in the north-western Indo-Gangetic plains where rice-wheat cropping sequence is in vogue.
“India in particular was highly successful at developing local manufacturing capacity to adapt and produce zero-tillage drills at a competitive cost. In 2003, the price of zero-tillage drill was $325 in India, compared with $559 in Pakistan. Close links between scientists and farmers also helped,” records the IFPRI publication.
Thanks to the availability of affordable machines, the zero-tillage technology began spreading from the late 1990s and gathered notable momentum in the early 2000s. Between one-fifth and one-fourth of the wheat area is reckoned to have already come under this system of farming. Surveys of farm households in 2003 and 2004 found that 34.5 per cent of the sampled farmers in Haryana adopted zero tillage, against only 19 per cent in Pakistan’s Punjab.
“The spread of zero tillage has been slower in Pakistan than in India, hampered by, among other things, bureaucratic struggle within the national system about whether or not zero tillage was viable,” observes the publication. Indeed, the studies on the effectiveness of the zero-tillage system in India have shown that it could raise farmers’ income by about $97 (roughly Rs 4,559, with the dollar at Rs 47) per hectare. This is because of both increase in yield (between 5 and 7 per cent) and reduction in cultivation cost ( from 15 to 16 per cent). In Pakistan, while the cost reduction has been noticeable, the yield increase is insignificant.
The major benefits of the zero-tillage technology are in terms of saving on cost, water and time. Farmers practising zero tillage spend much less time and energy on the crop sowing because land preparation and seeding operations are performed in a single run of the zero-tillage drills through the field. Normally, farmers make six to eight passes through the field for ploughing, levelling and seed sowing.
This helps the farmer save on diesel and labour even while allowing him to finish off with planting operation quickly. The saving in diesel is estimated at around 36 litres per hectare for farms using tractors, lowering the overall sowing cost by up to 80 per cent. Besides, it takes care of the need for timely planting of the wheat as the crop otherwise is subjected to heat stress towards the end of wheat- growing season which can reduce yield by 1 to 1.5 per cent per day.
Though, as pointed out in the paper, more research is needed to quantify the full range of environmental impact of zero tillage, some advantages are, indeed, self- evident. The reduced use of diesel and the consequential drop in exhaust emissions are amongst the significant ones.
Even more important, from the Indian standpoint, is the beneficial effect of zero tillage on the unhealthy and environmentally-detrimental practice of burning the leftover stubbles of paddy in a hurry to plant wheat. This generates tremendous amount of smoke, impairing the environment and causing health hazards like itching of eyes and aggravation of breathing illnesses. Under zero tillage, farmers can plant wheat, leaving the stubbles of the previous crop intact. The need now is to promote the zero-tillage technology in the rest of the Indo-Gangetic plains and try it out in other parts of the country as well.
