No solution in sight to tackle stubble burning

As days get shorter during late September, they bring along a slight nip in the Delhi air. But the knock of winter on the capital’s doors also brings dread.

As winds change direction, the Capital and its fast-growing suburbs with their tall towers become blurred by pollution, a major contribution being the smoke and soot from the burning fields of Punjab and Haryana.

It is ‘parali’ time again, when farmers in India’s food bowl states, having harvested the paddy crop, set out to prepare the field for sowing wheat, which is grown during the winter months.

With small landholdings, most cannot afford a combine harvester machine or the Super Straw Management System machine to cut the paddy stubble. They instead choose to burn the straw to clear the fields for the next crop cycle.

According to a study published in Science magazine in August last year, farmers in north India burn an estimated 23 million tonnes of straw from their rice harvest, an enormous mass which, if packed into 20 kg, 38 cm high bales and piled on top of each other, would reach a height of over 4,30,000 km or about 1.1 times the distance to the moon.

Another study by the Centre for Sustainable Agriculture said that burning one tonne of straw releases 3 kg of particulate matter, 60 kg of carbon monoxide, 1,460 kg of carbon dioxide, 199 kg of ash and two kg of sulphur dioxide, causing significant global warming and acid rain.

The root of the problem lies in the enactment of the Punjab Preservation of Subsoil Act in 2009 that prohibits sowing paddy seeds in nurseries before May 10 and transplanting seedlings before June 10 to reduce the use of groundwater for harvesting the seeds. A similar law also exists in Haryana.

The laws meant for arresting the decline in groundwater levels have pushed the paddy crop cycle closer to the sowing for rabi crops, forcing farmers to look for quick-fix solutions, such as stubble burning, to clear the fields for the next crop.

Between October 1 and October 8 this year, 1,509 stubble burning incidents have been reported from Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh, a significant jump from the 407 incidents reported for the same period last year, according to the data from the Consortium for Research on Agroecosystem Monitoring and Modelling from Space.

The winds bring these pollutants to the National Capital Region and the adjoining Gangetic Plains. The calm weather during winters and low temperatures lead to the disastrous impact of smog, the worst of which was witnessed in October 2016 and November 2017.

Smoggy conditions over Delhi have led to health emergencies in the national capital ranging from chest congestion, lung diseases to dryness of eyes and eye irritation.

Search for solutions

The Centre has responded with a slew of policy measures ranging from promoting crop diversification, imposing a ban on stubble burning by the National Green Tribunal, encouraging farm mechanisation to the warning of registration of FIRs against farmers resorting to stubble burning.

A petition in the Supreme Court by green activists even suggested withholding a portion of the Minimum Support Price for farmers till it is confirmed that they had not resorted to stubble burning.

NGOs, too, have been making contributions to address the issue by offering to buy crop residue from farmers to create manure.

“We have taken 1,000 metric tonnes of paddy straw to be inoculated with microbial biomes to create nutritious soil for vegetables in our Delhi farms,” Manoj Kumar, Chief Executive Officer, Naandi Foundation said.

The central government also unveiled a micro-biological approach to stubble burning by proposing to spray a liquid formulation to turn crop residue into manure over a three-week period.

The bio-decomposer solution, developed by the Indian Agriculture Research Institute, is the latest offering from the government to address the stubble burning issue.

However, this bio-decomposer initiative on a trial basis has come at a time when fields have been set on fire in Punjab already.