The issue of crop stubble burning cannot be addressed in a silo and using short-term, unsustainable solutions
The issue of crop stubble burning cannot be addressed in a silo and using short-term, unsustainable solutions
Monsoon has subsided, and North India is gearing up for a foggy winter. And with this the emphasis on stubble burning has returned to public discourse in India. Like every year, discussions have begun about how bad the stubble burning season will be this year and what potential ad-hoc technical improvements could solve the issue – in the short term.
a problem that is historical
We will soon read in-depth analysis and source segmentation studies of satellite image-derived calculations of the number of fires observed in each day that determine the precise contribution of stubble burning to poor air quality. An allegedly apathetic farmer who cares little about the well-being of Delhi’s urban citizens will be placed at a higher level of environmental management, and inevitable political disturbances will soon follow. However, this heated public discourse adopts an unapologetically adversarial frame for a complex challenge. The problem is a historical one that cannot be fixed with a short-term, permanent solution.
The root cause of stubble burning can be traced back to the 1960s-70s, when to meet the urgent challenge of feeding its rapidly growing population, India took several measures as part of its Green Revolution. The Green Revolution changed the way agriculture was practiced, especially in Punjab and Haryana. Economics of high yielding varieties of paddy and wheat, backed by a guaranteed buyer (government) and due to minimum support price, eliminating the previous variety of crops grown in the region, only to increase the caloric content. Crop monopoly oriented.
Further policy steps followed in the following decades, including the introduction of subsidies for electricity and fertilizers, and easier access to credit in agriculture only served to strengthen this monopoly. But this change to a two-crop farming method, while filling warehouses and feeding mouths, is reducing water levels, sharply increasing the use of pesticides and fertilizers. It has also led to consolidation of small farms into larger holdings.
In an effort to address the growing water crisis, the Punjab and Haryana governments introduced laws about water conservation, encouraging farmers to look to the monsoons rather than groundwater to irrigate their crops. The shortened harvesting season, which apparently resulted from well-thought-out policy moves, informed farmers of the need to rapidly clear their fields between kharif and rabi crops; The quickest of these methods was the burning of the post-harvest stubble.
The impact of stubble burning is felt across the Indo-Gangetic Plain (IGP) airshed, where what is burned in Punjab and Haryana has an impact on air quality as far as Bihar and West Bengal. Demands for governments to act on the seemingly avoidable practice translated into criminalization of the Act, with studies showing a major contribution of stubble burning emissions on winter air quality in the National Capital Region.
no significant improvement
Recently, however, a series of short-term ex-situ and in-situ solutions have been launched by the central and state governments, with a concrete focus on the subject. In-situ solutions include happy seeders and bio-decomposers, while ex-situ solutions include collecting and using stubble as fuel in boilers, producing ethanol, or coal in thermal power plants as well. includes burning. Economic incentives to reduce burns have also been tested with limited success. With crores invested in these solutions over the last five years, we do not see any significant improvement in the situation yet.
meaningful steps that are needed
Driven largely by short-term thinking, these technological improvements or alternative uses tend to marginalize without addressing the root cause. as stated in A recent article, The entire value-chain of agriculture in this sector needs to be changed If air quality, water, nutrition and climate goals are to be met. In practice, this means substantially reducing the amount of paddy being grown in the region and replacing it with other crops that are equally high-yielding, in demand and agro-ecologically suitable such as cotton. , maize, pulses and oilseeds. There will also be a need to build trust with the farmers to ensure that they are seen as partners (rather than the perpetrators) and are provided with the necessary financial support.
At the policy level, there is also a need to acknowledge that agriculture, nutrition, water, the environment and the economy are all deeply intertwined in the anthropogenic era. One cannot be addressed in a silo without second- and third-order effects on the other. Therefore, taking this longer would also mean establishing a mechanism for interregional policy making that aligns our goals for regional policy within the broader framework of sustainable development that we seek to adhere to.
This scale has not seen any change since the Green Revolution, but it is necessary if we have to deal with stubble burning in the long run. Fostering the necessary conditions for such a transition is complicated. It remains to be seen whether our institutions have the right mix of political will and professional acumen.
Bhargava is a Fellow at the Krishna Center for Policy Research. Views expressed are personal