The emphasis on health precautions, in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, has put the focus again on the lack of adequate threshing yards in villages that have resulted in farmers threshing crops on public roads.
Farmers spread their harvested crops, like ragi and paddy, on the road to be threshed under the wheels of vehicles that pass.
This results in not only a loss of grains, but also poor quality and unhygienic grains.
Now, in the wake of the rapid spread of COVID-19, scientists have urged both the State and the Union governments to take measures to build multi-purpose threshing yards at every panchayat so that threshing on roads could be avoided.
“The pressure on land owing to fragmentation, besides the nuclear family system, has resulted in farmers doing away with the system of having family threshing yards due to the costs involved. Threshing crops on public roads not only results in huge loss of grains, but also leads to desperate sale due to fear of quality being hit during rainy season. This practice also affects quality of grains as well as fodder due to mix of petrol, diesel, engine oil, urine, dung,” observes K. Narayana Gowda, former Vice-Chancellor of the University of Agricultural Sciences-Bengaluru.
He suggests building multi-purpose threshing yards in every village panchayat for the use of farmers on the payment of rent.
Dr. Gowda, who recently chaired a meeting to review the implementation of the Attracting and Retaining Youth in Agriculture (ARYA) scheme of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), says the threshing yard system was one of the issues that was discussed.
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“We have recommended to both the State and the Union governments to establish multi-purpose threshing yards,” he notes.
According to him, it would not be a burden on the government and the local authorities to create such spaces as they can build them under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act Scheme, and the Pradhan Mantri Yantra Dhara Yojana.
He suggests that low-cost sheds, compound and storage structures should also be part of the yards as farmers could store their produce. The facility could also be used for sports and cultural programmes.
The review meeting has suggested that either landless or less landed farm youth and self-help groups should be involved in threshing activities. This will increase the income of farmers, provide quality grains to consumers, quality fodder to animals, and employment to around 60 youth and around 30 SHGs almost round the year, he observed.