Plantations of Wind-breaks in the Central Mechanised Farm, Suratgarh-an Appraisal of Techniques and Results

During the visit of the Prime Minister of Russia, Marshall N. Bulganin and the First Secretary of the Communist Party of the U.S.S.R. Mr. N. Khrushchev they visited the Mechanised Farm of the U.P. Government in terai. Seeing the success achieved in mechanised farming there, the Russian leaders offered a gift of machines and equipment to the Government ofIndia if they could establish a similar farm in any other part of India. The Government of India accepted the offer and established the Central Mechanised Farm at Suratgarh in Rajasthan in August 1956. This farm is located, in the now dry Gaggar river bed, in the annual rainfall region of about nine inches which is a vast barren waste almost completely devoid of tree growth. The gross area of the farm is about 30,000 acres of which about 22,000 acres are cultivable. Since this farm was being started from scratch and it lay in an expansive waste subjected to hot dry winds and severe dust storms it was felt that a regular system of wind-breaks is to be planted in the farm.