New Holland's efforts for barring burning of Crop Residue

September 19, 2017
Greater Noida

With every production, comes by-products, some gets utilized but some has to be dumped as waste. Crop residue is one of the waste that generally find its end in fire, with farmers burning it and hence creating much nuisance. New Holland Agriculture brand has recently launched a campaign to spread awareness among farmers about ill-effects of burning crop residue post harvesting, and educate them about brand’s innovative solutions that can help in straw (crop-residue) management.

India produces 105 million tonnes of paddy and 150 million tonnes of straw every year. Paddy harvesting starts in the month of September, and as per the estimates, more than 90% of paddy straw is burnt in fields taking environmental pollution to alarmingly high levels. It is the main cause of SMOG that chokes the entire northern India and causes resinous health issues. Burning of crop residue also damages a substantial amount of nutrients required for growth of plants, which are present in paddy stubble and straw. 

The campaign in the first week of August’17 has covered hundreds of villages in most districts of Haryana. In the next phase, the campaign will move to Punjab and will go on for next 35 days reaching to all the areas where crop burning is prominent. Through this campaign, the brand is promoting entire range of relevant products such as Rake, Baler, Shredo Mulcher, MB Plough, Rotavator, Happy Seeder, and Paddy Chopper, which offer eco-friendly and profitable solution for straw management. Farmers are showing great interest in New Holland Balers & Rakes, which is visible in the number of bookings for these machines. They are looking at these implements as their future for straw management, as well as a second source of income.

Straw burning also results in the damage of organic matter present in soil. To fulfill these deficiencies, farmers use chemical fertilizers, which increases the cost of cultivation and leads to further environmental pollution through leaching of agrochemicals to ground water reservoirs and damaging the air quality through evaporation from soil surface and plant body.

New Holland Agriculture revolutionized hay & straw collection in 1940 at a global level, with the launch of world's first automatic baler. In India, New Holland balers are playing a significant role in collection of biomass for biomass based power generation by paddy straw & other crop-residues and cogeneration from cane trash in sugar mills. A gyro rake compliments the baler by collecting the crop residue in windrows for easy pick-up by a baler, thereby increasing its efficiency by 25 to 60%. With a low power requirement of 35 to 40 HP through PTO, the New Holland RKG 129 gyro rake is suitable even for very small farms. New Holland Agriculture has a state-of-the-art manufacturing plant based at Greater Noida, built on the lines of its international facilities, since 1996. The brand offers a technologically superior range of 35 HP to 90 HP tractors in India. Besides, New Holland Agriculture has a complete range of farm mechanisation equipment that includes rakes, balers, rotavators and pneumatic planters. New Holland Agriculture offers a wide range of products, from tractors (35 to 90 HP) to balers, providing complete solutions for farming. It supports its customers throughout the Indian territory with a network of more than 1000 customer touch points.