Roll Back This Farming Ac

Context: Question arises when GoI informed the Supreme Court that stubble burning contributes only 4-10% of Delhi’s air pollution and is not a significant source of pollution.

Impact of stubble burning

• Stubble burning is a short-duration, high-intensity polluting activity: The 15-20 million tonnes of paddy stubble burnt in Punjab, Haryana and western Uttar Pradesh during two months emit PM2.5 that is 4-5 times the PM2.5 emissions from all vehicles plying on Delhi roads in the entire year.
• Scientific studies shows that, intensity of emissions from stubble burning  is so high that even if a small fraction of these reaches Delhi, it causes the city’s poor air quality to deteriorate further.
• During the peak stubble burning months, their contribution ranges from 20-30%in Delhi’s air pollution: Pushes Delhi’s Air Quality Index (AQI) from ‘poor’ to ‘severe’ during October-November and leads to all hue and cry, including interventions by the courts.

Reasons for stubble burning

• Stubble-burning is a technology problem: Farmers using combine harvesters which combine reaping, threshing, gathering and winnowing in a single process are most likely to burn stubble, while those practising manual harvesting are not. 
  • Because combines cut the grainy part of the paddy plant (the spike)  and leave about 30 cm of the stem intact in the field. 
  • Thus, farmers prefer burning over manually cutting the stem, use another machine, practise in-situ management as  it is the easiest option.
• Use of straw: In Punjab and Haryana, basmati paddy is mostly harvested manually, because its straw is highly valued as animal fodder. 
  • The incidence of burning in basmati fields is, very low. Meanwhile, non-basmati straw is not used as animal fodder and hence is burnt.
• Cultural, practical and economic factors leading to non –adaptation of in-situ crop residue management, zero-tillage farming: As, they have been practising tillage agriculture for centuries and cannot be expected to quickly move to a new method.
  • Use of combines, weak market linkages for non-basmati stubbles and the promotion of expensive technologies that require a long adoption time collectively sustain the practice of stubble burning.
• Higher upfront cost  to adopt  new method of agriculture: Over the last four years, GoI has spent over Rs 2,000 crore on  acquiring  farm machineries to tackle stubble burning
  • Despite subsidies, farmers incur an extra charge of about Rs 2,500 per acre to use these machines, which most can’t afford.
• Vested economic interests:  Both the manufacturers of conventional combines and that of the in-situ machinery-makers benefit from the present government policy. Hence, they are promoting complex problems instead of simpler ones.

Way forward: Scientific, affordable and culturally adaptable solutions to tackle stubble burning

• Technical solution: Redesign the combine harvesters to cut the paddy straw from the plant’s base to remove the stem. The straw can either be sold or used as mulch. 
• A baling machine can be further incorporated into the combines to bale the straw, which can then be easily transported and sold.
• GoI should promote simple solutions instead of complex ones: GoI should subsidies companies to modify their combines like halffeeder combine.
• Elimination of stubble burning through zero-tillage farming ,in which stubble can be kept on the field and recycled in the soil. The no-tillage method has significant ecological benefits, including soil quality improvements  and reduced water consumption.

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