Date: 06/10/2022

Relevance: GS-3: Conservation, environmental pollution and degradation, environmental impact assessment.

Key Phrases: Comprehensive action plan, Stubble burning, Air pollution, National capital region, Crop residues, Air Quality Index, Marketplace for Crop Residue, Public Awareness Campaigns, Agri-implements, Crop Diversification, Pusa Decomposer, Crop Residue Management, National Policy for Management of Crop Residue.

Why in News?

• Centre asks Punjab to create detailed plan to control stubble burning.

Context:

• The Centre has asked the Punjab government to prepare a comprehensive action plan at the micro level for effective control of stubble burning as paddy harvesting has begun.
• The high level of air pollution in the national capital region of Delhi during winter has become an annual feature, which is partly due to burning of crop residues in Punjab and Haryana, among other factors.

What is Stubble Burning?

• Stubble (parali) burning is a method of removing paddy crop residues from the field to sow wheat from the last week of September to November. Stubble burning is a process of setting on fire the straw stubble, left after the harvesting of grains, like paddy, wheat, etc. It is usually required in areas that use the combined harvesting method which leaves crop residue behind.
• The process of burning farm residue is one of the major causes of air pollution in parts of north India, deteriorating the air quality.
• Along with vehicular emissions, it affects the Air Quality Index (AQI) in the national capital and NCR. Stubble burning by farmers in Haryana, western Uttar Pradesh and Punjab in north India is considered a major cause of air pollution in Delhi and its adjoining regions.
• Paddy stubble burning is practised mainly in the Indo-Gangetic plains of Punjab, Haryana, and UP to clear the fields for rabi crop sowing.

Reasons for Stubble Burning

• The main problem behind crop burning is the rotational cropping system of rice and wheat. Farmers burn stubble as they have to quickly clear the fields for the next crop.
• Once combined harvesters came into the scene in Punjab, Haryana and parts of Uttar Pradesh, manual harvesting decreased, and the stubble problem increased. The new agri-harvesters cannot cut the straw deep enough into the ground. So, after the harvests, straw stubbles stood firm, sticking out of the earth inches or even a foot high. It requires an additional cost to get the field cleared manually or through other machines. Burning the straw is much easier.
• The higher straw management machines require 60HP-plus tractors, which are rare in the countryside. If the farmers want a super seeder, they will need to buy a new higher power tractor. For this reason, only large and wealthy farmers can afford this makeover.
• The stubble burning problem increases each year because of bad policy. Policymakers are not listening to the farmers and what they want. Instead, they are trying to impose their ‘solutions’ on them, which we have seen repeatedly, fail to catch farmers’ attention.

Government Interventions to reduce crop residue burning:

• In terms of efforts being made to reduce crop residue burning, the following approaches have been used by various state and central administrations and regulatory bodies so far:
  • Banning Crop Residue Burning:
    • Crop residue burning was notified as an offence under the Air Act of 1981, the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 and various appropriate Acts.
    • In addition, a penalty is being imposed on any offending farmer. Village and block-level administrative officials are being used for enforcement.
  • Establishment of a Marketplace for Crop Residue:
    • Efforts are being made to increase the avenues for the alternate usage of paddy straw and other crop residue. For instance, paddy straw has a considerable calorific value, making it suitable for use as a fuel in biomass based power plants.
    • Similarly, it can be utilised for the preparation of bio-fuels, organic fertilisers and in paper and cardboard making industries. The strategy, broadly, is to assign a real economic and commercial value to the agricultural residue and making burning it an economic loss to the farmer.
  • Public Awareness Campaigns:
    • There are ongoing efforts to highlight the health effects of crop residue burning. It produces extremely high levels of toxic particulates, which affect the health of the people in the direct vicinity of the burning.
    • In addition, efforts are also being made through kisan camps, trainings and workshops, apart from campaigns through various print media, televised shows and radio telecast, in informing farmers about the alternative usage of crop residue.
  • Subsidy on Agri-implements:
    • The state governments, in collaboration with the Centre, has rolled out schemes for providing subsidy on mechanical implements that help tillage of soil, so that the crop residue can be retained in the soil, adding to its fertility, or alternately, collection of crop residue for putting it to commercial usage..
  • Crop Diversification:
    • There are various ongoing, long-term efforts at diversification of cropping techniques, such that crop residue burning can be effectively prevented. This is being attempted through cultivation of alternate crops (apart from rice/paddy and wheat) that produce less crop residue and have greater gap periods between cropping cycles.
  • Pusa Decomposer
    • Pusa Decomposer, a microbial consortium of fungal species (both in liquid and capsule forms) developed by ICAR, has been found effective for rapid in-situ decomposition of paddy straw.
    • The decomposers are in the form of capsules made by extracting fungi strains that help the paddy straw to decompose at a much faster rate than usual.
    • It involves making a liquid formulation using decomposer capsules and fermenting it over 8-10 days and then spraying the mixture on fields with crop stubble to ensure speedy bio-decomposition of the stubble.
    • It takes around 20 days for the degradation process to be completed.
    • It does not give enough time for farmers to prepare fields for the wheat crop on time.
  • Crop Residue Management
    • The Centre introduced the Crop Residue Management (CRM) scheme in 2018-19, under which financial assistance @50 per cent is provided to the farmers for purchase of CRM machinery and  @ 80 per cent to Cooperative Societies, FPOs and Panchayats for establishment of CHCs.
    • The scheme promotes usage of machines such as Super Straw Management Systems, Happy Seeder, Super Seeder, Smart Seeder, zero till seed-cum-fertiliser drill, Mulcher, Paddy Straw Chopper, hydraulically reversible mould board plough, crop reapers and reaper binders.

Way Forward:

• Despite these efforts, the stubble burning problem increases each year because of bad policy. Policymakers are not listening to the farmers and what they want.
• So, States (including Haryana and Uttar Pradesh) should establish a mechanism to ensure effective utilisation of machines, promote use of bio-decomposer in a complementary mode with CRM machines, promote ex-situ utilisation of straw by way of mapping demand from adjoining industries, including biomass-based power plants and bio-ethanol plants.
• States government should took up Information, Education and Communication (IEC) activities for mass awareness among farmers through intensive campaigns in the electronic/ print media, social media as well as through Kisan Melas.
• The only long-term feasible solution to straw-stubble burning is for the state to support low cost and low tech machinery that manages the straw at the village level and helps farmers towards growing crops suited to their Agro-climatic zones. A DBT policy linked to paddy procurement is also needed to ensure all farmers supplying to the government system are not burning stubble and in return are getting price support for straw management.

Source: The Hindu BL

Mains Question:

Q. What are the root causes of the stubble-burning problem in India? Why stubble burning problem persists, despite continuous government efforts to stop it?