Baler Machine:
With the problem of farm fires being taken up by the Supreme Court, Belar, a machine that facilitates ex-situ (off-site) stubble management has been in demand in Punjab and adjacent regions.
- Baler machines have been around for a decade, and currently around 2,000 of them operate in Punjab.
- Of these 1,268 are highly subsidised (50-80%) under the Centre’s Crop Residue Management (CRM) scheme.
- Balers play a pivotal role in stubble compression, acting as hydraulic presses to compact crop residues into dense, manageable packages.
- These compressed stubbles are securely bound using twine, wire, or strapping.
- Before using a baler machine, farmers cut the crop residue with a tractor-mounted cutter.
- A tractor-mounted baler machine compresses the stubble into compact bales using netting.
