AS rice sowing gets underway in Punjab, so does the acceptance of direct seeding of rice technology, commonly known as DSR — a relatively old method being granted fresh acceptance by farmers.

The technology improves growers’ profitability by allowing savings on a lengthy land preparation process, substituting labour and, more crucially, getting better plant population.

The Punjab government has been trying to promote this technology since 1980s, but success was hard to come. Drills were never up to the mark and compatible weedicides were almost missing from the market. The drill created germination problems for seeds and the absence of specific weedicides left narrow leaf weeds in the rice belt uncontrolled.

Under the new technology, farmers can skip seven to eight (ploughing and planking) processes, each costing them Rs500-600 per acre, for field preparation

Farmers avoided the technology despite mechanising the rest of the process — from cultivator to harvesters. The only missing component was drill sowing. Of late, however, the drill was redesigned and mainly re-crafted, after a tested Indian model, with new chemistries offering solutions to local weeds. Punjab expects more and more area coming under the DSR as more progressive growers adopt the technology — creating local models of success and advocacy.

Under the new technology, farmers can skip seven to eight (ploughing and planking) processes, each costing them Rs500-600 per acre, for field preparation. They just have to keep their fields moist, and directly sow wet seeds through the especially designed drill. After a day of sowing, they have to start irrigating their fields as per normal routine. Farmers can thus roughly save Rs5,000 per acre at this stage.

Next big saving of time, hassle and money come at the transplantation stage, where farmers save money which they have to invest on sowing nurseries and save labour for transplantation. Manually, only few farmers have been able to go beyond 50,000-60,000 plants per acre despite their best efforts, as the money is paid per acre, not per plant — thus planters have no interest in increasing plant numbers. With the new drill, they can easily sow 80,000 plants and, at least theoretically, should be able to add 50pc to their production.

Most of the farmers from central Punjab, or farmers of the traditional rice (mainly the basmati belt), term it a good omen as farmers desperately look for interventions that could bring the cost of production down. For the last few years, the initial investment has assumed decisive significance in determining most of the crop acreage. Farmers now opt for crops that are easy on their pockets.

In order to ensure benefits of this new methodology, farmers demand two more steps by the government. They want the government to work on seed development.Farmers were able to sustain the crop last year because of the government’s handholding — Rs5,000 per acre relief came from the prime minister’s package. Otherwise, it could have become almost impossible to sustain the rice crop. Better seeds are necessary to bring down cost of production and increase output.

Farmers further want the government to create a regulatory mechanism that creates a balance between international and domestic prices. Exporters have been making money at the cost of farmers. The current world prices of basmati hovers around $800 per tonne. In local terms, it comes around Rs3,500 per maund. By that calculation, the paddy price should not be less than Rs1,750 per maund, whereas the local prices have been ranging between Rs900 to Rs1,200 per maund.

Farmers says they need a fair price, notwithstanding an improved technology that reduces cost of production and raises output.

Published in Dawn, Business & Finance weekly, July 4th, 2016