Rural parts lack proper fire fighting system
| Date :01-May-2019 |
Staff Reporter:
Ongoing season in farming sector is season of harvesting. The hard toil of farmers could be seen lying around the harvest arenas, at procurement centres as well as fresh stock of grains brought to the market. This is the time when farmers get reward for their hard toil in the form of price of harvest from market. Simultaneously, a threat is also looming on the yield of grain stock following lack of adequate fire fighting arrangements in rural areas. Recent fire incident in farms that gutted standing crops in hectares, harvest stock in harvesting arenas took place in the region have indicated that with advances in farming, the need of fire fighting arrangements at Gram Panchayat level has become need of the hour.
The farmers may get compensation from the administration according to the norms, but the environmental losses caused are priceless. According to the agriculture experts, once the fire incident takes place in standing crop, the soil health degrades as the micro-organisms and natural strength of soil that is Carbon level falls due to high temperature and fire. Besides this, preparations of farm for next crop also takes extra cost and energy of farmers.
Bharatiya Kisan Sangh, State Spokesperson, Raghvendra Patel says that, the need of fire fighting arrangement at the Gram Panchayat level is must. In recent incidents, the standing crops in acres gutted in fire, causing huge losses to the farmers as well as causes losses to environmental health. Along with this, fire-tenders’ availability would also help in controlling burning of the crop remains after harvest. Dr B Sachidanand, former Director, Bio-Fertiliser Centre, Jawaharlal Nehru Agriculture University (JNAU) opined that, the soil, besides composition of different natural minerals, is also composed of microbial bodies like micro-organism, friend pests and bacteria.
The fire incidents cause huge losses to the soil health as high temperature not only disfigures mineral composition of soil, but also affects the biological content of the soil, which is its real strength. The mineral composition could be recharged or levelled by supplementing form outside, but the level of carbon content could be recharged in natural way. Dr Sachidanand, former Head Department of Soil Science and Agriculture Chemistry in JNAU added that, in order to control losses occurring due to fire incidents, awareness amongst farmers as well as local authorities should be enhanced.