Socio-economic Impact of Straw Reaper on Farmers in Rural Community of Haryana

Wheat is a crop of global significance and is a staple food of millions of people. Approximately one- sixth of the total arable land in the world is cultivated with wheat. From production point of view, world’s largest wheat production country is China, followed by India, USA and Russia and these countries produce 45 per cent of the total wheat production (Fang et al., 2018). Now a days more than 75 per cent of area is combined harvested and it is increasing every year due to scarcity of farm labour. In past traditional methods were used for harvesting of wheat straw, modern harvesting machines such as straw reapers and combine harvesters were lacking in the farmer’s field. Where as in modern times peoples are mostly relying on the advancement of agricultural technologies to reduce work load and to save energy. With increasing trend of mechanization, to collect the stubbles left in the field a locally developed tractor operated technology commonly known as ‘straw combine” is used by the farmers. The straw obtained from this process is used as soil improver, animal fodder supplement, mulching, biogas production, fibre boards, cushion and bedding materials, packaging materials and rope industry etc. Keeping in mind that straw reaper is a profitable technology for farmers the study was conducted in Sonipat and Hisar district of Haryana. 60 adopters and 60 non- adopters were selected. On the whole 120 respondents were selected for the purpose of the study. Interview schedule was prepared to collect the desired information from the farmers. Three-fourth of the respondents were using straw reaper on wheat crop whereas only one-fourth were practicing it on paddy the reason behind this was that due to more moisture content in the paddy fields the straw reaper does not give a good performance. It was found that households with better level of education, better annual income, medium size of landholdings were more likely to adopt reaper. Partial burning of straw, scarcity of spare parts and availability of local mechanics, was found to be the major constraints among the farmers. Socio-economic changes due to adoption of straw reaper were like increase in social ceremonies, increase in household appliances, expenditure on education etc. There should be more efforts by the extension officials to create awareness among farmers regarding new agricultural technologies